


Of Flesh

by thetreesgrowodd



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: All major characters will show up one way or another, Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkward Sexual Situations, Bittersweet Ending, Corpses, Implied/Referenced Suicide, John and Sherlock make it to the end but..., M/M, Magical Realism, NaNoWriMo, On the Run, Ravens, Supernatural Elements, Unilock, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:57:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 62,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2567387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetreesgrowodd/pseuds/thetreesgrowodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>University is supposed to be a new start for John Watson... until a mysterious infection breaks out, and campus is no longer safe. Panic and paranoia spread, while John, Sherlock, and their friends fight for survival.</p><p>Meanwhile, Sherlock is behaving unusually, and John is trying to figure out what exactly is going on between himself and his strange best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Save me._

A two-word text from Sherlock. That was all it took, and John was out the door, hurrying to his side. He knew it was probably just Sherlock being overly-dramatic about something unimportant and not anything serious — but he went anyway. He _rushed_ anyway.

It wasn't like John had much else to do at the moment. Classes had been cancelled for the next day, so John didn't need to worry about homework. He might as well go find something else to do. Other students obviously had the same thought. They were hanging out in the halls and gathering in dorm rooms. John heard the beat of music and the sounds of voices through several doors.

John went out into the twilight — luckily, the weather was mild — crossed the pavement, and there was Sherlock. He was lurking outside of his own dorm, a little distance away from the other groups of students, smoking a cigarette. He was wearing a black tee-shirt that undoubtedly actually belonged to Greg. John knew Sherlock didn't listen to — he doubted Sherlock even knew the _name_ of — the band that was across his chest. Sherlock had abandoned the formal wardrobe he'd brought to uni within the first few weeks — shoved it into his closet and shut it in, burying it and forgetting it like a shameful secret. He seemed to think that any clothes left lying around were fair game, and as Greg was his roommate, his clothes were the most accessible. John was sure that Sherlock would wear John's too if they fit him better.

"What's wrong —" John began.

"Lestrade is having a group of _friends_ over for a _party_ tonight—" Sherlock heaped scorn liberally onto certain words "—and we both know what an insufferable lot they are. So I was forced to invite you too to make it tolerable."

"A party?" John asked.

"Yes. If you hadn't come, I would have been driven to do something drastic and possibly criminal. You know. Thin the herd." Sherlock gave John a hint of a grin.

This invitation was, by Sherlock's standards, pretty good. Most were more like summons, and they were usually asking for John's help on strange experiments — both social and scientific — for Sherlock's classes. More often than not, John found out in the end that they weren't really assignments, but were about Sherlock trying to prove a point to his professors. And while John enjoyed most of it, it was nice to get an invitation to go and do something normal for a change.

*

"John! Welcome!" Greg called as John and Sherlock came in. The party obviously hadn't started yet as only a few of Greg's best friends were there. Greg seemed to be simply standing back and supervising as Philip was struggling to attach a mess of cables to the back of the TV. Sally, sitting on the battered sofa with a magazine, gave John a half-hearted wave and jiggled her foot. Greg's friends tended to dislike Sherlock — which John couldn't blame them for — and they had mixed feelings toward John by extension. After all, Greg was forced to spend time with the freak since they shared a room, but John hung out with him voluntarily.

But Greg had always been warm and friendly toward John and, surprisingly, Sherlock as well. Greg had a way of dealing with Sherlock that John admired. He was generally unfazed by Sherlock's unique brand of craziness, except when it went too far, and then he shut it down or removed himself from it decisively. No rolling his eyes behind Sherlock's back and gossiping with his friends about what it was that made Sherlock so weird like a lot of the other students did. John liked Greg too. He knew that in those first months of the term, before John and Sherlock had met (it seemed impossible now that they'd been in the same university and hadn't gravitated instantly toward each other) that Greg had been the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock had ever let himself have, and had helped him loosen up and get through interactions with other students and professors a bit better.

Sherlock flopped on his bed with a theatrical air of annoyance and John dug through Greg's collection of CDs and DVDs while Greg finished getting things ready. A few minutes later, John's roommate Mike turned up with a few 6-packs and a grin. John hadn't invited him, but wasn't surprised to see him there. He was one of those nice guys that everyone seemed to know — even Sherlock, and it had been through Mike that they'd met.

"Anytime you want to swap roommates, mate," Greg told Mike as he passed out the beers. It was an offer he made jokingly several times a week, trying to trade Sherlock for either Mike or John. Sally gave a mocking laugh.

"Fine where I am, thanks," Mike said with a smile, although the truth was that he and Sherlock got along ok, as they shared an interest in science and Mike had a higher than average tolerance for Sherlock's sharp edges.

"Don't barter me. Need I remind you again that human trafficking is illegal?" Sherlock grumbled. Despite the fact that he was lying flat on his back with his shirt riding up and his shoes on the bedspread like a kid, when he spoke, there was a quality to his voice that caught and held the attention of everyone in the room effortlessly. He radiated a certain charisma at times. In John's more insecure days, in his teens, he'd have wanted to try to emulate it. Now, he just accepted that it was something that came naturally to Sherlock — not that the git was even aware of it — but he still marveled at it sometimes.

Sherlock added an afterthought, "Unless... I might consider it if I'd get to share a room with John."

John opened a beer and took a few swallows to give himself something to do other than responding to what Sherlock had said. It was a joke — or at least as close to a joke as Sherlock ever got — but it was the truth, too. Sherlock may tolerate Greg and Mike, but he didn't have _friends_ — just John. _Especially_ John, and he made no secret of it.

The two of them were in a nebulous place. They were friends, but... John wasn't sure how it looked from the outside, exactly. People generally shrugged and accepted that the two of them were best friends, and said things along the lines of 'opposites attract' or 'better him than me.' But from his perspective, John knew that there was something more intense than friendship between them. Unlike Sherlock, he'd had friends before, real relationships. Good friends, people he'd cared about. Those relationships had ended, on good terms or not, as they'd grown up and gone on with their lives and drifted apart. But something different was at work here, with Sherlock. He'd never felt this way about someone before, terribly cliché as that sounded. He knew without question that he and Sherlock would be together for their entire lives. As if their names were written together somewhere, carved into stone long ago by some higher power.

After a slightly awkward silence, the conversation moved on. More of Greg's friends started to show up. His girlfriend. Brad Dimmock. A girl who attached herself to Philip's side, which seemed odd, since John had always thought —

"Yes, Anderson and Sally _are_ involved. But the girlfriend just doesn't know," Sherlock said into John's ear, coming up behind him suddenly. It was uncanny how Sherlock seemed to read minds at times. He supposed Sherlock had followed his gaze, to where Sally's posture had gone rigid and she'd become suddenly engrossed in her magazine, and had guessed at what John was thinking about.

Sherlock grabbed John's elbow. "Come on, let's get seats before they're all gone."

Sherlock made sure he and John got prime seats on the sofa, staking out their spot before others could fill it. As much as Sherlock complained about Greg's friends and disliking social events of any sort, John had noticed that he rarely avoided them. Like now, when John and Mike's room was clearly empty and they could go there to get some peace and quiet, Sherlock stayed here. Deep down, John knew that Sherlock liked Greg and kind of enjoyed being around his friends — even if it was only to tell them how stupid they were. He liked noticing details about people, and being obnoxiously _right_ about their secrets.

Greg put on some of the CDs that John had helped pick out. Sherlock watched the room, eyes keen for any detail — and whenever he got bored with that, he focused on John. More and more people showed up. Sally's friends, faces John recognized from his classes, people he only knew slightly. Sherlock leaned over sometimes to point out things about other people, some of which John understood and some of which he didn't.

The rest of the couch filled up and Sherlock and John were pressed together, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder. John could feel him breathing, feel his every movement, could smell cigarette smoke on him. Sherlock was close enough that his curly hair brushed against John's ear when he turned to make some witty comment at Sally, who was now perched on the arm of the sofa on the other side of Greg. The floor filled up with people sitting and standing in groups, talking and laughing loudly over the music.

After a while, someone put in the DVD of _Withnail & I_. It was one of John's favorite movies and always a fun one to watch with a group. Sherlock seemed far more interested in John shouting out all of the quotable lines along with the actors than he did in the film. After a few beers, Sherlock was floppier than normal and John was nicely relaxed.

At one point, Philip, who was sitting on the floor in front of them with his arm around his girlfriend, turned around and looked longingly at Sally, who was still ignoring him. Then — accidentally — he locked eyes with John. It must have shown on John's face that he knew about Philip's little love triangle because he shot John a murderous look.

John hardly cared what Philip thought, but being glared at got annoying fast. Sherlock noticed it too and — with Philip still staring — Sherlock very deliberately crowded even further into John's space and _kissed him on the lips_.

John knew that Sherlock was doing it just to annoy Philip, which was something John was only too happy to assist him with (Philip made a disgusted sound, which was followed by Sally saying, "ignore them, just ignore them"). It was just for shock value. It was just theatrics, like Sherlock's life-or-death emergency texts or his strops around the dorm. It was just part of the bad boundaries Sherlock and John had always had. Still, they wound up kissing for the rest of the film. John should have been concerned about kissing his male best friend in front of a roomful of people, or maybe he should have been a little annoyed at missing the end of the film... but _Sherlock was kissing him. Holy hell, Sherlock was kissing him_. And nothing (as John's muzzy mind declared triumphantly) _nothing_ could possibly bother him while that was happening.

Much later, as the party was winding down and people were trickling out of the room, John followed Sherlock outside when he went out to have another smoke, Mike and Greg grinning at them in a knowing way as they went. He wasn't quite sure what to say to Sherlock right then, but they settled into a comfortable silence and it didn't matter. Sherlock sat on the edge of a planter that was too high for John to comfortably get onto, so he leaned against it. The night was still warm and pleasant, and as much as John disliked the potential health problems that smoking caused, he guiltily enjoyed the smell of it sometimes.

There were some other students around the outside area of the building too. It wasn't abnormal to see a few at any time of the day or night, but there were more than usual tonight due to the next day's classes being cancelled. It seemed like they were being overly cautious, canceling classes and not letting anyone go on or off university grounds. There hadn't even been any confirmed cases of the infection on campus or in the area. They'd seen reports about it on the news, but it had seemed like something far away, unable to touch them. Tragic, but distant. The students were young and healthy — even if the infection did get onto campus, they'd be able to fight it off, wouldn't they?

A student nearby was talking on her mobile phone, pacing as she spoke. It clearly wasn't good news. "I know, but what does that mean? Why can't they go to the hospital?" she asked, her voice raising sharply. "They can't just say it's _full_ and turn them away. Can't they — can't they do something? Pills or an injection or... Why? But why can't they?"

That moment. That was when John started to worry. Sherlock, too, had his face turned toward her, listening to her side of the conversation.

Sherlock slid down and landed on his feet, then dropped the cigarette butt and stepped on it. "Stay over tonight?" he asked John.

John took a deep breath. They were avoiding talking about serious things like pros. "Sure," John said.

They went back inside together, where Greg was just saying goodbye to the last few people. He was usually pretty neat, but he seemed to have decided that the cups and beer cans and the rest of the rubbish could wait until morning (or, more likely, noon). John would help him with it, because he knew Sherlock wouldn't. For now, he swept the rubbish off of the sofa, took off his shoes and jacket and caught the blanket Sherlock threw at him.

It wasn't the first time John had slept on their sofa, but it was the first time he'd slept on it after making out with Sherlock on it. He woke up a few times during the night and just... thought about it.

*

The mood on campus was different the next day. Quieter, more subdued, without that feeling of it being a holiday that days without classes normally had. Students woke up to an email sent out from the university outlining some things. Sherlock (who always got up either significantly earlier or later than everyone else — today it was earlier) read it out loud to Greg and John.

Campus was strictly closed, the email said, with no one allowed to come in or out, but they had plenty of supplies on hand and would continue to receive shipments via contamination free methods. They were all to stay put and stay calm, even if they heard anything alarming about what was going on outside. Classes would resume in a few days if there were no signs of infection on campus.

John felt cold hearing it, and a little stunned. He felt like he couldn't put his finger on something, that there was something more going on that he couldn't see. Usually Sherlock was good at seeing those kinds of things, but he didn't offer up any opinions or theories, just curled up on the sofa with his feet bare and his hair still damp from the shower, wearing Greg's jeans and tee-shirt. Of course that meant John no longer had enough room to stretch out and go back to sleep, but it was ok. He was up anyway.

After cleaning up, John mainly spent the day on the sofa, with his knees pulled up to his chest, watching telly with Greg. Most of the channels were just round the clock news covering the outbreak, so they mostly stuck to watching DVDs. Sherlock didn't try to kiss John again, but sat next to him all day, usually scribbling something in a notebook or fussing over his phone, while only partially paying attention to the telly.

Mike showed up with four cups of coffee from the cafeteria and a change of clothes for John — he was a _saint_ — and joined them. Some of Greg's other friends dropped by during the day, most of them irritable and worried, wanting to vent and make sure that Greg was alright, none of them staying long. Mobile reception had gotten bad and the Internet had slowed to a crawl as well, and people didn't know what to do or how to get news from their friends and family. The popular theory was that someone — the government, the university officials, whoever — was intentionally blocking them, that there was information they didn't want them to hear. John thought it was probably just that everything was overloaded from every single student on campus trying to use them at once.

They were all restless. John didn't remember the last time he'd spent a day cooped up in a single room like this. Maybe when he was a kid, home from school with the flu. In the late afternoon, Sherlock got up and drowned out their film marathon with a loud violin practice (damn, he could really get some volume out of that thing) which Greg told him off for. Mike drifted restlessly between the telly and his homework. He kept saying it was a good opportunity to get a jump on it and get ahead. John agreed, but just couldn't face it himself. How could he possibly concentrate?

The current film, whatever it was (some action thing with explosions and a cute blonde with a dog who was the key to the crimes or something) ended and the credits ran for a while before anyone had the presence of mind to grab the remote and shut off the DVD. The telly switched over the news. Sherlock stood up and grabbed his jacket and cigarettes, clearly heading out for a smoke and John got up to go with him. As they left the room, they heard the reporter on the screen, "... desperately in need of assistance and are asking that anyone with medical training of any kind please phone the number below. If selected, you will be asked to report to a local medical facility or emergency shelter. You will be reimbursed for any lost wages during the time..."

John followed Sherlock outside. It was a relief to go with him and stand together in silence. Sherlock could smoke and John could stand and stare into the distance and they didn't have to exchange a word to know that they were perfectly content in each other's company, no matter if the world outside was falling apart.

There were other students outside, in small pockets and groups or alone. One girl caught John's attention. She sat alone with her back against a wall, earbuds in her ears, arms around her knees, and a dazed look on her face. Her eyes were red. Sherlock stared at her, but whatever he deduced about her, he didn't share with John. And John didn't ask him to. A gust of wind blew something dark against John's feet and he looked down in surprise at a huge black feather. Must have been from a raven's wing. If he'd been younger, he'd have picked it up and taken it home with him. Instead, he moved his foot and let it blow on. He didn't believe in omens, but if he did... well, he'd studied Poe's raven poem in one of his english classes. He knew what they were typically associated with.

They went back to the dorm room after that and stayed there, leaving the news on the telly but with the sound off. None of them felt like going to the cafeteria, but fortunately Greg regularly stocked up on large quantities of cup-noodles, crackers and cheese, power bars, and a few things that at least resembled actual nutritious food. If they'd been left to Sherlock's food supplies, they'd be sharing a jar of olives that Sherlock had purchased at some point for... John wasn't sure what, exactly. Something for a science class, most likely. They broke out a deck of cards and lost badly at poker to Sherlock for a while, until Greg started to accuse him of counting cards. A pointless accusation, John thought — of course Sherlock was counting cards. He probably wasn't capable of _not_ counting cards.

When it got dark out, Greg plugged in the fairy lights they'd left up since Christmas, turned out the lights, and passed out the last of the beer. The four of them stayed up late, talking about childhood memories, which transitioned into stories of supernatural experiences, which turned into talk of spiritual beliefs in the way a conversation only could in the near-dark and after a couple of beers. John didn't believe in much and neither did Greg and Mike, not really, but they'd all had some unusual experiences. It was fascinating how many of them the average person actually had, even if they had rational explanations for most of them. That time the door slammed when you were home alone and were sure you had closed and locked it. The day you just had that funny feeling that something was going to happen, which caused you to hesitate and because of that you avoided a car crash. That dream you had about someone you hadn't seen in years, only to get a call from them later. Those kinds of things. Sherlock didn't speak much, but surprisingly didn't shoot down or scoff at others' stories and opinions.

John was listening to Greg and Mike, lying on his back on the floor with his jacket over his upper body and his hands behind his head, when Sherlock slid down off of his bed to join him. Wordlessly, Sherlock lay down beside him and tried to tug John's jacket over himself too, which was just silly because it was Sherlock's own dorm room and he had plenty of his own blankets within arm's reach, not to mention that there was no way the jacket could cover both of them. But John let him do it, childish as it was.

Sherlock turned toward John and slipped his arm over John's stomach, tugging him closer in a way that wasn't exactly comfortable. "Yes, alright Sherlock," John said, his face growing warm. He patted Sherlock's head awkwardly. It wasn't so dark that Greg and Mike couldn't see them. Those knowing grins seemed to tug at their faces again.

This was just how university life was, John thought. Nothing was private. Everything was out in the open. People fell in love and it was all awkward and new and it was out in front of everyone because they all lived so close together, constantly bumping shoulders with everyone else. At best, you might be behind a closed door hoping your roommate didn't decide come home anytime soon and that the music was drowning out any other sounds you were making. Relationships were public knowledge and you just went with it and did what you wanted to anyway, hoping that whoever was watching didn't care. And if they didn't, they could just fuck off.

Not that — not that he and Sherlock had that kind of relationship. Exactly.

Mike's voice began to sound far away, washing over him after a delay, like a wave reaching the shore. John's mind stopped associating meanings with the words as he dozed off. His focus narrowed down to the warmth of Sherlock curled against him. The world outside felt impossibly big, but for now they were still safe and hidden.


	2. Chapter 2

Footsteps moved up and down the hallway all night. John heard them even in his sleep. He woke up once, his neck in agony from sleeping on it wrong. Sherlock's shoulder was pinning his to the floor and he'd somehow balled up John's jacket and was clutching it under his other arm. John wiggled out from under Sherlock, got up and stole pillows and a blanket from Sherlock's bed and tried to get more comfortable on the floor (leaving one pillow near Sherlock in case he woke up and wanted it) and draping the blanket over both of them, but he left enough space to be decent between them on the floor. The amount of space two blokes who were best friends would leave between themselves when they were sleeping next to each other.

When he woke again it was light out, but still far earlier than he would have liked. A grey, early morning light was coming through the curtains, making the fairy lights look dim. John sat up, wincing as his back told him what it thought about sleeping on the floor. He sighed and rubbed his face.

"John. I've been lying awake for hours," Sherlock said in a low voice, making John start. Sherlock was still lying down, his hair a riot on the pillow. His face looked pale and puffy from sleep. "Fancy seeing if we can get a coffee?"

"Mm." John rubbed his face. "Yeah, alright," he said in a raspy voice.

Sherlock put on one of Greg's hoodies while John went to the bathroom, but they didn't bother changing clothes or washing up. They left Mike and Greg sleeping.

It was overcast out and the air felt heavy. They crossed the campus, mutely observing everything that was going on. Students were gathering with a purpose, kneeling on the pavement and writing on neon poster boards or cardboard with permanent markers, making signs. Some folding card tables and chairs had been set up as makeshift booths with hand-written banners made out of bed sheets. Some people were wearing medical masks. They were strangely quiet. Everyone looked exhausted and stressed, like they'd gone without sleep, or that it was just too early to muster up the energy.

John tried to read the signs and fliers as they went. Some had to do with the treatment of the infected. "NHS - Make them well, not locked in a cell." "Take Two Manacles and Call Me in the Morning." The rest mostly had to do with the supposed mobile phone blackout. "Keep Calm and Block Mobiles". One whole group of students had signs that looked like mobiles with "CENSORSHIP!" on the screens. John could almost feel Sherlock itching to mock them, but he stayed quiet.

John, reminded by the protesters, pulled out his phone and tried to get a signal as they reached the cafeteria. The queue wrapped around the building. John had never seen it like that. Across the way, the coffee shop queue was longer, but likely to would move faster, so Sherlock and John got into it.

"We're getting coffee for Greg and Mike too," John said, because it was the kind of thing Sherlock forgot sometimes. People wrote him off as selfish because if it, but John knew it wasn't that exactly. Sherlock was just complicated.

"Mm-hmm."

"Hang on, I've got a signal," John said. Sherlock took out his phone as well, and frowned at it. John had a few texts from Harry, of the "U BETTER B OK" and "CALL ME. NOT EVEN KIDDING" variety containing no real information. Harry had never mastered the subtle art of texting. There was also a voicemail from Mum from yesterday, telling him in a distracted way that they were stocking up on groceries and were going to hole up at home until this thing was over and not to worry. Yeah, like he could flip off the worry switch just because she asked him to.

John tried phoning his parents several times with no luck, before trying Harry. Amazingly, she answered, and John stepped a few feet away from the queue for privacy, leaving Sherlock holding their place.

"Harry? Oh thank god. Where are you?"

"John?" Harry asked. There was a lot of background noise behind her, voices. "I'm in the worlds biggest fucking queue, that's where."

"For what?"

"Outside a hospital. Oh don't flip out, I'm not sick but — I need to get Clara in!"

"Oh God, Harry. She's not —"

"She doesn't have it! She doesn't have it! But—" There was the sound of something moving against the phone and Harry's voice took on a muffled sound, as if she had her hand cupped over her mouth and the mobile so people wouldn't hear. "She has this big bruise on her back and she's feeling funny and she's panicking, she's fucking panicking, John, she thinks she's in the Hell Hours and I can't calm her down!"

 _Hell Hours_. John had heard that term, not on the news or in the papers, but from the students who had stopped by to talk to Greg yesterday, talking about rumors. Hell Hours... the last hours of lucidity between the early symptoms presenting and the total onset of the infection. The window of time when a person knew they were infected and _still cared_.

Harry continued. "I told her not to come here! I told her they'd lock her up!"

"'Lock her up?'" John repeated, with numb lips, thinking of the signs he'd seen. "I heard something about that, I heard that they are—"

"I know that! I fucking know that, John!" Harry hissed. "I didn't want to come. Emily from work, she decided to have her baby at home yesterday without a midwife or drugs or _anything_ because she was too afraid to come anywhere near a hospital. But Clara — Clara needs h-help." Harry's voice broke on the last word.

Clara had it. John was sure of it then, despite Harry's earlier denials. Clara. A woman John had hugged, who he'd sat at the same table with for Christmas dinners, who he'd thought would be a part of his family for years to come, maybe even an aunt to his own children one day. He felt cold all over. They said that any two people in the world were connected within seven steps or less. _John's Sister's partner_ — that was too few steps. The infection wasn't far away anymore.

"Harry. Harry, I'm sorry. Mum and dad — have you talked to them? I can't get through."

"Yesterday. They were alright. They were at home. But they don't know about Clara yet. I tried, but phone lines are a bitch today. Are you alright where you are? I found a blog from some student at your uni who said you're on lockdown."

"Yeah," John said. "Campus is closed and nobody's ill here. At least, far as I know."

"Shit, I have to go, I think we're moving," Harry blurted out.

"Be careful," John said, but Harry had already hung up. "Fuck." John rubbed his face. "Fuckity-fuck." He rejoined Sherlock in line, unsure of what to say, but as usual Sherlock had already picked up on the situation.

"Your sister's..." Sherlock began, in a gentler voice than normal.

"Partner," John replied, and didn't say anything more about it. Neither did Sherlock. John distractedly watched the noisy flock of large black birds that were pecking at the overflowing rubbish bins and skips.

When they got to the head of the line, Sherlock quickly ordered four large half-caff coffees.

The phrase 'half-caff' sounded so wrong coming from Sherlock. "Sherlock, why—?"

"Half caffeine. Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock shrugged.

"No," John said shortly.

"I have my reasons."

"Maybe so, but _I_ need to _have my caffeine_ ,"

"No. Trust me on this. I'll explain later," Sherlock said.

"Oh, alright," John said with a sigh, getting out his wallet and pulling out some money. It was too late to change their order now anyway.

"No," Sherlock said, watching what John was doing. "Break any large notes you have. In fact, pay for each of them separately so you get more small change back."

"Separately?" the man at the counter repeated, with a frustrated and pointed look behind them.

John sighed again, acutely aware of the long queue behind them. Their eyes were burning he back of his neck. "I don't know what kind of unlimited wealth you think I have — and carry around with me in my wallet — Mr. Holmes, but how about if we simplify this. I'll get two of them — yes, alright, with a large note — and you get the other two and pay however you want, alright?"

"Yes, fine," Sherlock said, reaching for his own wallet. "My way would have been better, though."

They paid and walked away with John holding the coffees in a cardboard carrier.

"Right, explain," John said.

"We may not have regular access to coffee for a while. We've got a campus full of caffeine addicts who will use up what we have and if we start receiving emergency supplies, just the necessities, do you think coffee will be considered a necessity? No. So we should start stepping down our caffeine intake now. I for one would rather not have to stop cold and deal with the headaches. I'm going to have enough problems with nicotine."

"Which... is why you didn't have your first cigarette of the day. Ok, that all makes sense," John said, wishing — as he often did, where Sherlock was involved — that he'd just explained himself ahead of time. "But what about the money?"

"Follow me." Sherlock led them back along a different route, opened a little-used side door to an administrative office, rounded a corner, and stopped in front of a hidden alcove with two vending machines, one with bottled drinks and one with snacks and sweets.

Sherlock pulled out a bag from the pocket of the hoodie. "Few students know these are here. The other machines on campus are all out already and unlikely to be refilled soon. We should stock up on whatever we can, as much as possible. That's why we need small notes."

"Oh. Maybe you should have checked if Greg and Mike had any too."

"They did." Sherlock held up a plastic baggie of money. "I checked their wallets and pockets earlier."

"Earlier? You mean earlier as in while they were sleeping?"

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "Yes, of course."

Despite not being in a high-traffic area, the machines didn't have much left to offer. John set the coffees down (luckily they were blazing hot and it wouldn't hurt them to cool down for a few minutes) and bought what he could from the machine, as Sherlock did the same next to him. When they were done they had a bagful of crisps, chocolate bars, little bags of trail mix, and bottles of orange juice and cranberry juice.

*

When they got back, Mike and Greg were up and had the telly on, but were still looking sleepy.

Accepting the cup of coffee that John handed him, Greg said, "Oh, I could kiss you right now! Or should I let someone else?" with a twinkle in his eye.

 _"So we've all heard the stories,"_ an interviewer was saying on the news, _"about situations where — in extreme circumstances, someone lifts a car off of their child, for example. That the human body has that ability, we just don't do it all the time because we'd hurt ourselves. You're saying this infection does something like that?"_

The person being interviewed replied, _"It is, in a sense, something similar. The infection shuts down the self-preservation parts of the brain and seems to drive the infected individual to act in ways that may harm themselves or others. It's not that they're gaining any sort of super strength, they're just unlocking the full potential that the body has. Which may, of course, lead to all kinds of injuries in that individual. Such as is sometimes seen in PCP use, they stop being aware of the pain and damage they're inflicting on their own bodies."_

_"And this is why medical facilities are increasing security, and why some have gone so far as to lock infected individuals into prison cells, or — we've got a photo someone has sent in of this, sorry for the quality — chain them to their beds? Now, look, those aren't the standard padded restraints that medical staffs sometimes have to use, those look like — manacles?"_

"Jesus," John whispered. "That's really happening." He stared at the telly. He was still standing — sitting down hadn't even occurred to him.

_"Ah, well, metal is the most secure method that's been found so far to restrain the infected individuals."_  
  
 _"Well tell me this, if these individuals are such a threat, why not sedate them?"_

_"So far, such methods have been ineffective."_

_"Don't you think we're going to see... all kinds of complaints about human rights?"_

_"Yes, but we're operating under emergency circumstances here. And don't forget that restraining them in this manner is also keeping the medical staff and families and other individuals safe as well. The infection is spread through bodily fluids and there have been reports of caregivers being infected by being bitten, or by infected blood coming into contact with open wounds as may occur if the infected individual becomes violent."_

"This is... insane." Mike shook his head.

_"What advice do you have for viewers at home. Maybe they have an infected relative and the hospitals are full."_

_"The best advice is to take them to a designated medical facility or quarantine area. If that is not possible, then the best and safest option is to lock them into... well, any kind of strong cell or very sturdy room. We're talking about... bank vaults, basements with stone or cinderblock walls, industrial refrigerators or freezers with the cooling units disabled."_

_"Many people don't have any of those in their homes."_

_"In that case they should secure the individual with chains — not ropes — very securely, including, and most importantly around the neck..."_

"Jesus Christ," John muttered. "Jesus fucking Christ. Tell me this isn't real. Please tell me this is a horror film you put on to fuck with us." But he knew it wasn't. One look at Greg and Mike's faces told him that.

*

In the early afternoon there was a knock at the door. "Woohoo!"

Greg opened the door and let Professor Hudson in. She was wearing a medical mask. "Oh, hello boys! Everyone decent?" she asked. She held up a clipboard. "Listen, I've been sent round to check on everyone in this dorm. Any symptoms here? Signs of the infection?"

Greg glanced around reflexively. "No, I don't think so."

"If you don't mind could you stand up for a moment? Only they've asked me to snap some photos, you know, for documentation," Professor Hudson told them.

"Documentation that we don't have the infection?" Sherlock asked, getting to his feet.

"Yes, something to do with applying for food and supplies to be delivered. The government needs certain documentation so they know what kind of aid we quality for. We'll get what we need, though, don't worry, it's all been very well organized. The faster we get these sent to them the better." She fumbled with a camera phone. "Oh dear, I'm learning to use this as I go, I'm afraid. There it is. Sherlock, dear, if you could turn around and pull up your shirt, please, and turn your face to the side."

"You need a picture of his back?" John asked.

"Yes, apparently it's one of the earliest symptoms of the infection. Discoloration on the back."

John remembered what Harry had said about Clara's back being bruised, and held his breath in concern as Sherlock unzipped the hoodie and tossed it aside, then pulled up the tee-shirt. John exhaled in relief at the sight of Sherlock's smooth, unblemished skin, clear except for a few freckles. Professor Hudson took the photo.

"It's odd, though, isn't it?" Greg asked, as Professor Hudson had Sherlock pull his shirt back down and face the camera. "Discoloration on the back? What has that got to do with the infection?"

"They've been saying it causes problems with circulation. That can cause discoloration, but you'd expect to see it in the feet," Mike said.

"I'm sure I don't know. The more I hear about all of this business the worse it sounds. Here, hold this up for the photo. To show the date, you know." She handed Sherlock that day's newspaper. The headline read _NHS Orders Infected Caged Like Animals_. She took the second photo, then motioned for John to step over and repeat the process. No one gasped or said anything when he pulled up his shirt to reveal his back, so he supposed he was clear. She then repeated the process with Greg and Mike.

"Have you — seen anyone with the symptoms, Professor Hudson? I mean, is anyone ill here, on campus?" John asked, feeling a sudden dread.

"There haven't been any cases of the infection. There are students in the nurse's office who are ill, but there was a flu going 'round before all of this started and that seems to be all it is," she said. "There's been a nasty rumor that they're infected, but they are being monitored very closely. They don't have the symptoms."

"What if — what if you found someone with it in one of the dorms, during your rounds? What would you do with them?" Greg asked.

"We have a plan in place. But don't worry about that." She marked their names off on her clipboard. "Oh, and I'm to ask you to do your best to make contact with your families today and reassure them that you're fine and that there is no infection on campus, and then once you make contact to stop using the phone and email so you can free up the phone lines or the mobile waves or what have you, alright? You all doing alright? Plenty of food? We'll be around with any news and to check on everyone again in the morning. Chin up, boys. This will all blow over soon and I'll still expect you to turn in your homework."

As Professor Hudson was leaving, Sally came in the door. She shot John and Sherlock a startled look, as if afraid of what she might witness them doing on that sofa next, then lurked just inside the door, talking to Greg with her arms folded across her chest. "Kitty's parents came and got her during the night."

"But the campus is closed," Greg said. "It's supposed to be closed."

Sally shrugged. "Didn't matter to them. They drove up to the gates and argued with whoever was there until they let her come out and get in the car. I mean think about it — why would they care if anyone goes _out_ , really? We should be more worried about people coming _in_."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Let me ask you, though," Sally lowered her voice, speaking just to Greg. "Do you think they had the right idea? Do you think we're safe, just sitting here?"

"The infection hasn't gotten in."

"I know, but you know what's going on out there. People are rushing the supermarkets. They're panicked and about this close to riots. And we're just sitting here with food and supplies and we're not exactly a fortress here. You know what we have guarding the perimeter? The rugby team." Sally threw her arms up. "I mean, people out there get desperate enough and they're going to break in here, and they'll bring it in with them. And who knows if it's any better out there, but at least anyone getting out now can get away, far away, and can keep moving."

"Sally, I don't know. I don't know what to do. But we have to stay calm. We can't do anything rash."

"I know that, but..." Sally leaned closer to Greg. "My aunt lives a few towns over. I've been trying to reach her, 'cause if she could come and get me..."

"Is that what you want to do?"

"Dunno." Sally sighed and wiggled her mobile with a tired smile. "Have to reach her first, don't I? In the meantime we'll just have to wait and listen and be careful, yeah?"

"Yeah."

*

The rest of the day passed slowly, with one horrifying news report leading into the next. With the internet all but inaccessible, it was their only source of information. From the window they saw thick plumes of smoke in the distance. The groups of protesting students got bigger and louder. John mostly felt numb. The world seemed to have gone sideways overnight.

Later, while Sherlock was in the shower, a friend of Mike's, who John knew slightly (and mostly by his reputation on campus for sharing a name with an American actor) came by and talked with Mike out in the hallway. John found himself alone with Greg in the room.

"So. You and Sherlock."

John stiffened, feeling automatically defensive. "Yeah?"

Greg shrugged loosely. "I think it's great."

"It's not like — I'm not gay," John said quickly. "I like women too."

Greg nodded. "Not judging you, mate. And everyone knows you like women, believe me. You've earned yourself a bit of a reputation in that department. Which makes this all the more surprising, although... none of the girlfriends lasted that long, did they? And I'd be lying if I said I'd never wondered about you and him."

John had always found his reputation as a ladies' man a bit baffling. Sure, he'd dated and he'd had fun. He'd really liked some of the girls, he just hadn't found anyone he'd wanted to stay with long-term. "It's not like that — not like I planned it! When we met, Sherlock and I, we became friends. We just clicked and then... it went where it went."

"I always knew he just needed for people to give him a chance. I'd try introducing him to people, you know, and he's not an easy bloke to like right off the bat, God help me, but I always thought if anyone sticks around long enough to get to know him..." Greg spread his hands. "Maybe he'd get used to people, and get a bit less rough around the edges. And I think he has."

"Yeah. He has."

"And if nothing else," Greg said with a smirk, standing up and stretching, "you have a boyfriend who can check your homework. You'll want to break his nose while he explains just how stupid you are compared to him, but you'll have all the right answers."

 _Boyfriend_? John sat, digesting the conversation, playing it back. He only realized what he'd said after he said it. 'I like women _too_.' That was a confession, wasn't it? It had slipped out. He'd just told Greg he was attracted to Sherlock before he'd even fully admitted it to himself.

It didn't help when Sherlock got out of the shower with just a towel around his hips, his face flushed pink from the hot water and little rivulets of water running down his body. He rummaged in Greg's closet for clothes, then unashamedly got dressed right there.

Mike came back inside a few minutes later looking uncharacteristically serious. "Bill's got a call from his dad. He's on his way here right now to get him. We're from the same town, you know. My folks know his folks and he's promised to take me as well. Bill's already told a few of his friends they could go too and the car's full up, but I can try to get you in. We can, I dunno, double up or something, sit on the floor."

John glanced over at Greg and Sherlock. Sherlock's face was impassive, but Greg and John exchanged a loaded look. It sounded like long shot at best, unlikely that even one of them would get a spot, let alone all three. The protesting students outside were getting paranoid and panicked and if they spotted a car at the gates letting people in... Something in Greg's eyes told John he was imagining the same scene he was — a dangerous rush of students for that car, like a disaster film where panicked people sunk lifeboats by overloading them.

"You can at least pack up and be ready and we'll see if any of you can fit. I mean, we can just all cram in and screw seat belts, right, it's not like we'll get a ticket..." Mike trailed off, helplessly. He was a good guy — he was such a good guy — and even as he felt the cold knot in his stomach that formed from rejecting a slight possibility at escaping, John admired Mike's simple genuineness. "I'd get my parents to come too, but Bill's dad said there was an accident or something and their car was wrecked, but that they're ok," Mike added.

John hoped it was true for his friend's sake.

"You go, Mike. Get back to your family safe, mate," Greg said as John nodded.

"You sure?" Mike asked. "Sherlock?"

John looked again at Sherlock. If he wanted to try it, if there was any way to ensure that Sherlock got a safe ride out of here, as much as it would kill him to let Sherlock out of his sight right now, John would gladly give up his own chance to leave to give Sherlock one. But Sherlock shook his head.

"The three of us — we'll be alright. We'll stick together," Greg reassured Mike.

Mike nodded. "I better go pack. I'll... I'll see you lot when this has all blown over."

John forced a smile and an optimistic attitude. "Probably in a couple of days, then. You want me to walk you back to the room?"

"Ta, but I'll be fine."

"See ya, mate. Take care of yourself," Greg said.

"Mike." Sherlock nodded.

And Mike left.

*

Sherlock was sitting on the window sill smoking. He'd only had two cigarettes all day, and he hadn't gone outside for either of them. He'd compromised by only smoking with the window fully open and as close to it as possible.

Sherlock hadn't spoken much, not for hours. That wasn't exactly unusual. He didn't normally engage in small talk, or joke around, or say all of the things that were really completely pointless when you thought about them like most people. Also, without classes to attend or experiments to conduct, he was lacking the stimuli that often set him off talking nonstop about them, whether anyone was interested or not. John usually tried to follow him when he did, because he'd realized that Sherlock didn't rattle on and on about technical things because he liked annoying others and didn't care if they were interested or not, but out of a deeper need to be understood, to communicate and connect. There was always substance in what Sherlock was saying, even if no one else understood what it was.

"The withdrawal's hitting you pretty hard, isn't it?" John asked, coming to stand by him at the window.

"No. It's manageable."

The throngs of students were still out there with their signs, even though it had gotten dark out. They were chanting and singing. John understood their impulse to be out there trying to do something, pointless as it may be. He felt so helpless sitting here, unsure about the safety of his family. He'd tried calling Harry and his parents again, but hadn't gotten through.

John realized he hadn't seen Sherlock make or receive any calls. "Were you able to get through to your brother?"

Sherlock shook his head.

"What about other family?" John asked, although Mycroft was the only one he'd ever heard Sherlock mention.

"Don't have any. We're orphans." Sherlock was still staring out the window, at the crowds of people who were illuminated by candles and the glowing screens of their various devices.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"I..." Sherlock began slowly, "earlier today, I received a text from one of Mycroft's associates."

"Oh?"

"His house was broken into and apparently looted last night. His car is still in the driveway. He hasn't been heard from," Sherlock said with a strange calmness.

Similar images from the news flashed across John's mind. Horrifyingly. "Oh God, Sherlock. I'm sorry."

"'Sorry.' You keep saying you're sorry. Sorry for what? It's not your fault."

"Sorry for — sorry that you're going through this..." John trailed off. "I don't know how else to say it."

"It's alright. I understand. The English language has its limitations. It's never entirely possible to express things in words. You feel a sympathetic pain because you assume that I am in pain."

John nodded.

"Well. Even if Mycroft is dead, his absence won't have much impact on my normal, everyday life, because he was already absent from it... not to mention the fact that I don't think we're _ever_ going to have anything resembling a 'normal, everyday life' again."

His words sunk in slowly. "No. No, Sherlock, you're wrong. We'll get through this."

"Oh John, you're such an optimist." Sherlock stubbed out the cigarette on the window sill and left it there. He rubbed his face, then ran his hand over his hair. His hand was trembling slightly and the movements were uncharacteristic, hesitant.

John's chest ached. "Sherlock, listen to me. We're going to get through this. Because we're going to _fight_ this thing, fight to get through it, alright?"

"Together?"

"Yes." And because it needed extra emphasis, John leaned in and kissed him. And Sherlock's hand, steadier now, clutched John's shoulder and pulled him in.


	3. Chapter 3

During the night, the people outside shouted a phrase over and over, but John and Greg couldn't understand it, no matter how long they listened to it. If Sherlock knew what it was, he didn't speak up. He lay on the sofa quietly. Once, when John walked near him, he grabbed the hem of John's jumper and held on until John sat down on the floor next to him for a while. But John couldn't sit for long. In contrast to Sherlock's lethargy, John and Greg were restless. The chanting was getting inside their heads. Sometimes it sounded like gibberish, but then it would shift and sound like it was saying something nonsensical or even disturbing. They just couldn't block it out.

Greg and John debated back and forth about leaving the university, and whether or not they were overreacting by wanting to run. Was it really dangerous here, or was it just chaotic? It would be stupid to abandon a place if it was safe. But they agreed that it was time to pack and be ready for whatever happened next — if that was getting a ride out, leaving on foot, or staying where they were and waiting to see what happened. They would need to pack light and have the essentials ready to go, even if they hadn't decided on their plan of action. They filled Greg's duffle with food, bottled drinks, a blanket, and a first aid kit, and plugged in their mobile phones.

There were running footsteps in the hall, followed by several loud crashes and banging. As if made for such a situation, Greg immediately went into the hall to see what was going on, with a shout of "Oi, what are you doing?"

John followed him out. There was a moment of shouting and confusion. Two girls and a guy, who Greg seemed to know although John didn't, were frantically trying to get into one of the rooms. At first they tried to say they'd just lost their key, but John could tell it wasn't true. So could Greg, who put his hand on his hip and stared at them disbelievingly. So they told them that their friend had developed the mark on his back. They'd locked him in a science lab, but they were afraid he'd come after them once he had fully _turned_. They were going to leave campus, but first they needed to get some things from his room.

"You're sure? You're sure it was the mark?" Greg asked.

"Yes, we saw it. Like this," one of the girls said, as the other two went back to trying to force the door. She gestured with unsteady hands to indicate an approximate size and shape, roughly at chest-height on Greg.

"What if it was just a bruise or—?"

"It wasn't," she insisted. "It didn't look like that. It was black and it was _perfect_ — the edges — and it was symmetrical, like a— like a—"

"Tattoo?" Greg suggested. "You sure it wasn't just—?"

"It wasn't a tattoo! He didn't have a tattoo! As I should _bloody well know_ ," she shouted, tears in her eyes.

The hall went quiet for a moment. Greg looked back toward his room and John followed his gaze. Sherlock was standing there, leaning against the doorjamb, listening to the whole thing. John hoped — for the first time ever — that Sherlock would come over here, as bitingly rude and abrupt as possible, and point to evidence that the three of them were wrong about their friend. That they'd somehow faked it all so they could steal something of value from his room, that this was all lies, that it was something criminal instead. That they were acting the roles of people panicked half out of their minds in an attempt to cover up a simple, old-fashioned crime. Sherlock would point out a broken fingernail or a scuff on someone's shoe — something that proved it all. John had seen him do it enough times.

But Sherlock just locked eyes with Greg and nodded once.

Greg nodded and went to the door they were trying to break through. "Alright, then. Here mate, let me help. Ready? One, two, three!" Together, they gave it a few good, synchronized kicks, and the area around the lock splintered and gave out.

"Right then, Godspeed," Greg told them. He left them to it and went back to his own room with John and Sherlock.

"God," Greg shut the door and checked the locks, then rubbed his face tiredly.

"Check me, please," John said, pulling up his tee-shirt and turning his back.

Sherlock's fingertips brushed unexpectedly across his shoulder blades. "You're fine, John."

They all checked each other then, despite Sherlock's reassurances that it was unnecessary as they hadn't been out of each other's sight and the infection wasn't spread by touch or air. But even after they had checked, John still felt dirty, like he'd touched something filthy and was itching to wash his hands.

"You think — you think it's really here? Were they right about their friend having it?" John asked.

"I think... we need to prepare for the worst now," Greg said. "There's no question anymore. We need to get out of here when it gets light." The news reports had heavily cautioned against going outside at night, something about the Infected being sensitive to sunlight and trying to avoid it — although, it didn't mean the daytime was safe either.

Greg had a sturdy canvas rucksack he used for his schoolbooks, but Sherlock didn't even own one. He'd come to uni with a leather briefcase, but he'd abandoned it along with his own clothes in favor of just carrying his books around. Greg rummaged in his closet and dug out an old rucksack, covered in permanent marker doodles and pins, with keychains hanging off the zippers. He tossed it to Sherlock — the metal on it clacking and rattling — who eyed it and pulled a face before stripping off all the unnecessary weight.

They split the rest of the food and drinks between them, then started packing other things they would need. Unsurprisingly, Sherlock started putting Greg's jeans and tee-shirts into the rucksack. John reminded him to pack a belt — Greg's jeans were too big and rode low on Sherlock's hips, even Greg's old jeans from before he'd put on a few pounds at uni.

There was nothing else John could do at the moment. He wished he'd gone by his room earlier to get some of his things. During those long days he'd sat here watching telly, bored out of his mind, he could have gone and gotten ready for the possibility of leaving. Now Greg and Sherlock were packed and he wasn't. They'd have to stop at his room on the way out in the morning, and he'd have to pack quickly.

They didn't sleep much that night. Even if it had been quiet, they were all too keyed up. The chanting eventually subsided into a clamor of voices, which gradually faded, and by 4 am it was almost quiet. They looked out to see that the groups of protesters had thinned out. Emergency or not, people were reaching a point of exhaustion and finding someplace to get a few hours of sleep. At least, that was what John hoped was going on and nothing more sinister. There was smoke billowing up in the distance, and the smell of it was seeping in, even with the windows shut.

A knock came at the door, making them all start out of a doze on the sofa. It was Sally and Philip, and they both had bags. Sally, in running shoes and exercise clothes, her hair in a ponytail, with a slim rucksack that buckled around her waist and had a holder for a water bottle, looked the most prepared of any of them. Philip had a bulging messenger bag.

"We're taking off," Sally said. "Dunno if you heard, but people are saying some students have it now. I haven't got in touch with my aunt, but we're making for her place anyway. We can't stay here."

"Just the two of you?" Greg asked, glancing from one to the other.

She shrugged. "Everyone else decided to stay. That is, except for the ones who have already left or have gone missing. I'd prefer a bigger group — some more muscle to fight anyone off who tries to mess with us."

Greg glanced over at John and Sherlock, who were still sitting together on the sofa.

"Oh bloody hell, not them," Philip muttered under his breath.

Sally's eyes fell on Greg and Sherlock's packed bags. "Um. Do you want to...?" Sally began, uncertainly.

"To be honest, we're just waiting for it to get light out. We were planning on leaving today, although we didn't really have a plan about where to go," John said, his voice hoarse from tiredness. "We just think... we need to get out of here. But if we're all going, we may as well go together."

Sally looked at them for a moment, then surprised John by saying, "Yeah, alright."

They made their plan. They would leave campus, going by John's on the way so he could pack. Once outside, Greg suggested they find out if there was any kind of official shelter they could get into. If not, they'd see about stocking up on any supplies they might need from the shops in town before starting the hike to Sally's aunt's house.

Sally showed them a map on her mobile. If they were lucky, maybe they could get a ride, although with five of them it would likely mean having to split up. On foot, the walk would take them about a day and a half, meaning they'd be outside for one night. They'd have to find someplace safe to rest, or else keep walking. John wished they'd actually slept earlier, as he'd only dozed against Sherlock's shoulder a bit that night. Their plan for dealing with any Infected was to keep moving, and steer clear of anyone acting strangely.

"We'll just get that far and then worry about the next step, right," Sally said, point to the destination on her phone. "Best case scenario, it'll be safe and secure and we can wait this thing out there and come back to university when it's clear. Or she can drive us somewhere or... something. Otherwise... we'll figure it out after we get that far."

It wasn't a great plan. If there were any kind of designated shelter, as Greg hoped, they'd probably have already been evacuated to them. And there was no guarantee that Sally's aunt would be at home. What if she had fled, or was infected, or her house had been broken into and wasn't safe?

Their plan had too many problems, and _Sherlock_ hadn't even pointed them out. That was worrying. He'd stayed quiet during the whole conversation. He was letting Philip and Sally have more input into this plan — this plan that was going to risk their lives — than he himself was putting in. He'd looked at the map, but otherwise had lounged on the sofa with a posture and attitude that said he was bored and lost in his own train of thought — but John, knowing him as well as he did, could tell he was actually listening while pretending not to. Sherlock had been quiet and withdrawn since he'd gotten he news about his brother.

While Greg made a last sweep of the room for anything they might need, and Philip and Sally checked their own rucksacks one last time, John took a quiet moment with Sherlock. "Alright, Sherlock? Feeling up to this?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Don't see how we'll be any safer at Sally's aunt's house."

"We can't stay here, can we?" John asked. Sherlock stayed mute. John brushed his hand over Sherlock's shoulder, resisting the urge to push Sherlock's hair back out of his eyes. He was aware of the others in the room and of the fact that he and Sherlock hadn't really clarified what their relationship was now or how it had changed, but he didn't think the touch would be unwelcome.

"Mobiles, gents," Greg said, handing each of them their fully charged phones, along with the chargers. John stuffed his into his pocket.

Then they were all ready to go, standing around facing each other, rucksacks on. They all took a deep breath.

"Right. Ready?" Greg asked.

Sherlock took a last longing look at the room — Greg's posters, the window he'd sat in to smoke, his own untouched closet with his suits stashed away and nearly forgotten. Then, like taking a plunge into a swimming pool, they opened the door and went out.

Sherlock spoke to the group for the first time as they got into the hall. "Not that way. This way."

"What for?" Greg asked. "John's room is —"

"We need to get to the gardener's shed. Come on," Sherlock said, and without any explanation or seeing if anyone was actually following him, began striding off in the direction opposite to John's room.

"'Gardener's shed?'" Philip repeated in an exaggerated tone. "Good lord. What on earth for?"

"Weapons," Sherlock said, without looking back.

The sun was just coming up and the campus was still fairly quiet. They reached the shed quickly. Someone had already broken the locks before them — who knows what they had been searching for — but they found some items they could use (and Sherlock took a few others that John didn't see a use for). Heavy wire, duct tape, metal files, and gardening gloves. Best of all was a pair of heavy-duty hedge shears, which Greg and Sherlock pried apart. The bolt connecting them broke, giving them two blades. Greg took one and Sherlock thrust the other into John's hand, who didn't really know what to do with it. He managed to jam the handle under his belt, leaving the blade hanging down like a sword, and wondered if he could actually walk like that without slicing anyone — or himself — up.

"We should have thought of this earlier," Sherlock muttered to himself. "We could have used the metal shop and really created some proper weapons.

"We're not going to have to actually _use_ these things, are we?" Philip asked, accepting the hoe Greg handed him with a dubious look.

"Maybe, maybe not, but we're going to have them with us and ready just in case," Greg replied, looking through the rest of the tools and handing them around. He's automatically taken an authoritative role in the group. "Right. To John's room."

*

"Oh, fucking hell," John muttered as they passed through a hall that had door after door broken open. The contents of the rooms were badly rummaged and spilling out of the doorways. Only a few doors were still shut — some of them had been barricaded off, while others were damaged from an attempt to break in.

"This is a bloody disgrace," Sally muttered. "This is how people behave in a crisis?"

"EVeryone is panicked, so let's try not to be, too. Remember that we might be in more danger from uninfected people than the infected ones," Greg said.

There were still a few students around — there was a group sitting together on the floor looking shellshocked and exhausted, and a few people rushing up and down the halls.

A girl in a nightgown came out of one of the few closed doors ahead of them, crying and obviously distressed. She shouted something about her boyfriend not waking up. John had just enough time to think that maybe she looked familiar — was she in his history class? — when a form loomed up behind her in the doorway, grabbed hold of her, and yanked her out of sight, back into the room. She screamed.

"Oi!" Sally shouted.

Sally, John and Greg all lunged for the door and pushed it back open. A rush of foul air came out; the room _reeked_. There was a moment of confusion as they all bottlenecked there, with Sherlock and Philip coming up behind them and trying to see into the room.

There was a young man there, and he was obviously infected. His eyes were vacant, his movements were stiff and slow, and he was pulling his girlfriend across the room without acknowledging that she was shouting, "Stop it, you're _hurting_ me!"

_This is why they call them zombies, oh fuck. All those protestors arguing for their rights and humane treatment, they have no fucking clue_ , John thought. This was the first infected person he'd seen up close — oh, but the news reports really had been hiding things. It hadn't looked this bad on the telly. There was no confusing him with a healthy person.

"Oh God," Philip muttered. "We've got to get out of here."

"We can't walk away and leave her!" John snapped.

"Now mate," Greg began, uncertainly, "let her go. Let's all take a minute, and we can just talk a bit."

The man's blank face turned only slightly toward the group of strangers who had just forced their way into this room. He lowered his face to his struggling girlfriend's shoulder in what might have once been an affectionate gesture. But he opened his mouth wide, with his teeth bared, and there was no question in John's mind of what he was about to do.

Sally and Greg moved as quickly as John did, forgetting their makeshift weapons. Greg pushed his head back — keeping his fingers clear of the mouth — while Sally pulled at one arm, trying to get him to release the girl. John managed to wedge himself into the middle — hearing Sherlock's shout of "John!" only vaguely — and pried the other arm back. Someone — John wasn't sure if it was Sherlock or Philip — managed to bash the man in the head with one of the gardening tools, making him stagger back, and when the girl was finally able to slip out of his grasp, John pushed her over toward Philip, who pulled her safely back into a far corner of the room.

There was a confused struggle between the rest of them, with a lot of awkward grappling, friction burns, and stepping on each other's feet. The infected man tried to move forward with Sally, Greg and John trying to restrain him. He was strong. He was a match for them. They could be seconds away from any of them getting infected.

"Do something!" Philip called.

John got a glimpse of Sherlock, makeshift sword held at the ready, watching keenly and waiting for an opening. They managed to push the infected man back and he stumbled when his legs hit the bed. Sally leaped up, throwing her weight onto his upper body and they overbalanced him. He fell hard and John, Sally and Greg piled onto him, elbowing and jostling each other accidentally as they pinned him and tried to avoid his teeth.

"We have to cut the head off," Sherlock said. He was calm, but there was a strange edge to his voice.

At that, the girl gave a shout from the corner, where Philip was still holding her back.

"Cut the head off?" Greg asked with a groan.

"What the _fuck_ gives you that idea, freak? We can't just —" Sally began, outraged.

"It's the only way to stop them," Sherlock said.

"Couldn't we, I don't know, chain it up or something?" Greg asked, panting as he worked to pin the man's heaving limbs.

"There's nothing here to chain him up with, and nowhere secure to lock him into," John said, scanning the room and trying to think straight. His full weight was on the man's legs, which were trying to kick him off. "And we're going to get killed if we take the time to try and find something."

"Sherlock, you sure?" Greg asked. "If you promise me you're sure, I'll go along with it."

"I'm sure."

"Because this could earn us a murder charge, you understand," Greg said.

"It won't. But yes, I'm sure," Sherlock said. "I'll explain why later."

"You do understand we only have gardening tools!" Philip shouted, waving his hoe.

"If we can't sever it entirely, we have to at least break the spinal column," Sherlock said. "But a complete decapitation would be better."

"You want me to do it?" John asked. _Fuck oh fuck, am I really about to decapitate someone? Just because Sherlock Holmes told me to?_

"It's going to need a lot of strength. Greg," Sherlock said, taking Greg's spot pinning the man down and passing his weapon over.

"No!" the girl cried out. "They can cure him! They'll cure him! They said on the telly — they said —"

"Would you just think about it for a second?" Sherlock shouted. "They were trying to prevent a panic when they said that. If you believe it so much, then next time we'll just let one of them bite you and you can sit around and wait to be cured! There _is no cure_ — only _this_."

"Take her outside!" Greg ordered, and Philip did.

Greg got into position, lining up the blow, cautious even in his haste. He pulled the comforter off of the bed and draped it around the neck to minimize the blood spatter. Sally cringed and turned her face away, but didn't release her grip.

"Bit lower. Don't lodge the blade in the skull," Sherlock said. 

It took a lot of work to completely sever it (John lost count after seven strokes), probably due to the poor quality of the blade and the thrashing of the thing. When it was over, they got to their feet, panting and staring at the body in shock. John felt cold sweat running down his back and his sides. It was hard to believe it was over, and _harder_ to believe that it had really happened. Every single sense was overloaded with the vileness of it. He wanted to retch.

There was a commotion across the room and they looked up to see a huge, fluttering black shape. There was a raven trapped in the room. It seemed much larger in the confined space than they normally did outside. They must have overlooked it earlier with all the chaos of the fight. It flew up against the ceiling clumsily, wings hitting against furniture. They ducked defensively, arms over their heads, and rushed back out into the hall, shutting the door behind them.

A bird trapped inside. When he was very little, John's grandmother had told him that was a bad omen.

"Did you do it? Is it dead?" Philip asked, eyes wide. The girl, next to him, had her arms wrapped around herself, fingers restlessly bunching up the fabric of her nightgown.

John still, thinking about the raven, asked, "The infected man?"

"Yes, the infected man!" Philip shouted.

"Well that — that killed him, I guess," Greg said.

"What do we do with — with it now?" Sally asked, still panting. Sweat was running down her face.

"We get the hell out of here," John said. "And we can't just leave her. We have to... get her to a friend, or find a safe room or something."

"We don't have time for that. Things are worse here than we'd realized," Sherlock said, stepping right into the girl's space. "Go. Get far away. Anywhere but here. Now!"

"Sherlock," Greg sighed, as the shocked girl turned and ran.

Sally glared at Sherlock. "How could you? That poor girl —"

"Is alive because of us," Sherlock said. "But that doesn't make her our responsibility. I suggest that in the future, if you want to survive, ignore cries for help. The lot of you are far too eager to play heroes."

Greg held up his hands. "Alright! Well at least now we know what the Infected are really like and what it takes to stop them. God, I hope they're not all as strong as he was."

"And that's another thing," Sherlock snapped. "Stop calling it a 'he,' a 'man.' Because they're not people anymore, and they never will be again. You call them the Infected as if it's a temporary problem, as if they can be cured. The reality of it is that they're already _lost_."

"Sherlock." John stepped between him and rest of the group and spoke to him firmly. "That's not important right now. We're all on edge already. Back off and let everyone calm down."

Sherlock blinked at him. "John, I don't want you getting killed because you see these things as people who need your help."

"I know, and you have a point, you really do, but shouting at us isn't helping."

Sherlock looked surprised, as if he hadn't realized he was shouting. He nodded at John and didn't say anything else.

John faced the group, feeling self-conscious. "Right, then. It's just up the hall here."

As they grew near, John could see that the door to his and Mike's room was standing open. It wasn't surprising, but it made his stomach clench painfully anyway. John wondered what condition it had been in when Mike left it, and if he'd gotten off of campus safely.

John went inside with a groan at how bad the room looked. The closet and drawers were all open. The others helped him start sorting things — his clothes and Mike's were all mixed together on the floor — all except for Sherlock who was still lurking near the door, weapon in hand. Watching their backs, John supposed. They were in danger just from being here where the infection was now and they all knew it. Time was important, and John felt the weight of it, since they'd only come this way so that he could get the things he needed. If that Infected man — that _thing_ — in the room back there had hurt them, it would have been because John made them come this way.

John had already mentally made a list of the things he'd want to bring — his good boots, pocket knife, first aid kit, the stash of breakfast bars in the back of his desk drawer, all things he'd counted on having during their trip — but as they dug through the clothes and books scattered on the floor, John didn't see any of them.

His laptop was gone too — his _fucking laptop_. He could excuse the other things — whoever took them might have been thinking of their own survival — but the laptop? He was so angry he was shaking, but maybe some of that was the leftover adrenaline from the fight.

He pulled off his sweaty shirt and put on a clean one, then found his rucksack and stuffed some clothes into it. All of his school things would be useless on the road. What else? He found his good trainers — not quite as good as his boots would have been — and toed off his grubby old shoes to change into them.

Greg had checked the chest of drawers and came back with a few things he added to John's bag. John barely even acknowledged or registered them. Greg knew what he was doing. But he was wasn't so sure about his assessment when Greg tossed the rest of the clothes and hangers from the closet and removed the wooden clothes poles — until Greg gave it a practice swing. Of course. Another weapon, which could double as a walking stick. Greg took the one from Mike's side as well.

"Think we've got everything that's of any use here," Sally said.

"Yeah, we should get moving," John said, standing up and putting the rucksack on. The reality of it hit him then. They were going outside into _who knows what_ with no plan more definite than somehow get to Sally's aunt's house alive. And, God, after sitting on his bum watching the world going to hell, passively hoping that if he waited it would get better, doing something was _terrifying and wonderful_.

Then he realized Sherlock wasn't in the doorway anymore, or anywhere in sight in the hall. "Sherlock?" John called.

"Where is he?" Greg asked. "Sherlock?!"

John jogged down the hall. Unless Sherlock had completely left, the only place he could be was in one of the other rooms. The others seemed to have that same thought, as Sally banged a door open to look inside and Greg ducked into a room across the hall, holding the clothes pole defensively.

"Sherlock?" John asked, barging into another trashed room.

"Here!" Greg called. "I found him, the git."

Sherlock came out of one of the rooms, still stuffing things into his rucksack.

"Were you — are you stealing?" John asked, then realized it was a stupid question. "Never mind. Just don't wander off like that."

"The rooms have been well picked over, but I found a few things of use. Now we really should go," Sherlock said, as if he hadn't been the one holding them up.

*

They left, the group of them, staying close together and with their weapons ready. They took a back way out, thinking it might be a little quieter, and found a rabble of people clustered around a gate at the rear edge of campus. John wasn't sure what he had expected — someone marking their names down on a list as they left, or uniformed guards telling them they couldn't leave, people checking their backs for discoloration, or confiscating their improvised weapons. Instead they got this — a mob of people shoved together, the stench of sweat — the sharp smelling sweat that only came from anxiety — raised voices, a lot of questions, a few big blokes — probably the rugby team on security duty that Sally had mentioned before — and confusion. They weren't letting anyone in, but no one seemed to care about anyone leaving. They squeezed through the crowd —

And they were out. Just like that.

John had put such hopes on this place, on going to uni, on a new start and a new future, but he hadn't even been here that long. Now — unless they were very, very lucky — it was already over.


	4. Chapter 4

As they looped around to the main road, John realized they hadn't left the chaos behind them — it was everywhere. Grouped around the front gates of campus was a crowd of what seemed to be the parents and family of students, clamoring and arguing with university staff who weren't letting them in. A few students, who had apparently been let out just as John and his friends had been, were begging for rides and trying to get signals on their mobiles.

"Jessie?" one woman cried, catching Sally by the shoulders.

"I'm — I'm not Jessie, I'm sorry," Sally said, flustered. "Really." But the woman didn't let go, and Sally tried to pull away with a sound of distress. Greg and John helped pry the woman's hand away.

There were protest signs out here too, but John didn't read them — he just kept moving, following behind Greg and Sherlock, letting the bigger blokes part the crowd for him. He grasped the clothes pole he was using as a walking stick (and would use as a weapon if he had to) and resisted the urge to take the strap of Sherlock's rucksack in the other so they couldn't be forcibly separated. But he didn't like the image of a toddler trailing along holding his mummy's skirt that conjured up, so instead he just moved quickly, keeping Sherlock within arm's reach until they got through the thickest part of the crowd.

Greg, still hoping to get them into an officially designated shelter, called "Is anyone in charge here? Any police?" But other than a few funny looks, and a frazzled-looking woman laughing out loud in a bitter kind of way, there was no reply.

They passed by the shops and cafes they'd often visited, now broken-into and looted. Any hopes they'd had of finding some kind of organized shelter where they'd be taken care of, or even a functional supermarket seemed absurd now that they saw how things really were. There were the remains of bonfires and ash on the ground. They'd seen the plumes of smoke from their room, and John remembered what he'd seen on the news about bodies of the Infected being burned. Outwardly, he felt curiously calm. They walked in near silence (aside from the occasional curse muttered under someone's breath) and picked their way around debris and people. Some of the faces were familiar, some weren't.

Philip stared around in shock at what had once been their laid-back little uni town. "It's bloody insanity out here, like something out of a film. This can't be real."

Ravens pecked at... well, at this distance, it looked like a heap of old clothes... but John knew better.

Things were far worse than they'd expected to find out here. John had pictured an emergency situation, yet still with some order. He'd known things would be bad, but this... He almost wished they hadn't left school, the safety of Sherlock and Greg's dorm room, but _no_ — indulging himself by thinking like that was too easy, and it wasn't true anyway. Things were no safer there, not with the infection inside and everyone living so close together. And now that he'd seen firsthand how easily even the locked doors could be broken down, he understood what an illusion that safety had been.

No, they were safer when they were moving. They went to the main road and started walking. They weren't alone — others were on foot, on bikes, or pushing carts or prams full of luggage. They looked haggard, pushed to the breaking point. John was glad that the five of them in their group were all athletic and in good shape. Not only would they have the stamina to cover a lot of distance at a decent pace, but if anyone — anyone human — was out here looking for people to steal from, they probably wouldn't target them.

There were occasional cars, too, and most of them were going the right way — _away_ from the university — but they were full of people and possessions. There wasn't much chance that they were going to find a ride. The few cars that were were going the other way seemed to be full of the worried families of uni students. One slowed down, and the driver rolled down the window to ask what things were like at the university. Sally and Greg spoke to them briefly, filling them in, and in exchange found out that the next town up the road was in chaos as well.

Quietly disheartened, they walked on, falling into a rhythm. It was a faster pace than John would have chosen, even for exercising, but he was in good shape and it was reasonable. He cautiously transfered his weapon to his other hand and relaxed the stiff claw his hand had turned into while gripping it. The road was winding through a wooded area. John remembered seeing it from the bus on the way up here — it was nice, when you weren't too terrified out of your mind to care. They passed the occasional slow-moving group, or people sitting and resting by the roadside, but they — and even cars — became more and more rare as the day went on.

John lost track of the time, surrendered to the pure movement of walking and keeping every sense alert for movement or potential danger around him. His breathing settled into a pattern in time with his footsteps. The sun was nearly overhead by the time any of them spoke again.

"Sherlock." Greg, who was in the lead, glanced back over his shoulder.

"Hmm."

"You insisted we decapitate that — that thing back there. Why?" Greg asked. Sally and Philip looked at Sherlock out of curiosity too.

"Remember the report we saw on the news that gave advice about what to do with the Lost?"

"Yeah. They said lock them up," Greg said, not commenting on Sherlock's new term for the Infected.

"Or, if locking them up wasn't possible, to _chain_ them, specifically with chains around their _necks_ ," Sherlock said, as if the words carried significance.

"Which... I admit, I thought was pretty strange, but what's the connection?" John asked, prompting Sherlock.

"Think it through step by step." Sherlock shrugged, like they were all being dim on purpose. "Let's imagine that I'm infected and instead of taking their advice, you handcuff me to something secure. What would happen next? What would I do? Remember, I wouldn't be bothered by pain or by the knowledge that I was damaging myself."

As much as John hated the idea of an infected Sherlock, he pictured it. "You'd pull against the cuffs." He put his hand around his own wrist, feeling it, working through the chain of events. "Until something broke. Assuming that wouldn't be the cuffs and whatever the other end was attached to... you'd pull at them until your _bones_ broke."

Sherlock nodded. "Yes. And after enough bones broke, I'd be able to pull my hand out and be free, and none the worse for wear aside from some broken bones in my hand."

"Which certainly isn't going to stop you from walking around and infecting anyone," John said. "They'd probably even keep moving with broken legs. They'd find another way to get around."

"Exactly, John. But if the chain had been tightly around my neck..." Sherlock gestured at John.

"You wouldn't be able to get out of it, not like with the handcuffs. But if you kept trying hard enough... you'd break your _neck_." John shuddered. "Broken bones wouldn't stop them, but... surely a broken neck would?"

"Yes. The brain has to be disconnected from the nervous system," Sherlock said, casually. "So the only fail-safe method for restraining them is to put them into a restraint that they will _kill themselves trying to get out of_."

"But they were telling people to do that to their families. Their loved ones," Sally said.

"Yes."

"Knowing it would kill them?"

"Knowing they would kill themselves," Sherlock corrected.

Greg made a little sound of disgust and shook his head.

"That's barbaric," Sally snapped.

"I suppose," John spoke up, "maybe it would save the family the grief of killing them in a more direct way." 

"Actually we shouldn't call it killing them. In my opinion, they're dead from the time they're infected. What we're talking about is simply damaging them to the point that they're no longer a threat," Sherlock said.

"It's just..." John wet his lips, feeling uncomfortable. "They wouldn't have really given people that advice unless they couldn't... It really means there's no cure in sight, doesn't it? They have no hope for finding one."

"Not necessarily. Just that there aren't enough cells to hold them all while they test and distribute the cure," Sherlock told John. "They know that in order to spare lives and slow the spread of the infection, some of the infected will have to be neutralized. They just provided the average person with the easiest way of doing it. Families would see the discoloration on the back, preemptively get the individual into chains, thinking they're just temporarily restraining them for safety until a cure is available. Then when the so-called Hell Hours are over and the infection is well and truly set in, the infected destroy themselves trying to escape from their restraints. Neat. Simple. Elegant, even."

John couldn't agree just then. He couldn't stop picturing Clara, straining against a chain around her neck while Harry watched in horror.

"So you hear 'chain them around the neck' and you get _all of that_. Your mind goes to breaking the spine — and to decapitation?" Sally asked.

"I followed a logical chain of thought. Decapitation is simply another way of severing the spinal column. Without a chain or equally strong restraint, decapitation with a blade or forceful blow to the neck is really the only option."

Sally clucked her tongue and turned her head away, an ironic sort of smile on her face, as if she wasn't sure if she was glad to have been right about Sherlock or not.

"How about we stop and have some lunch?" Greg asked, gesturing toward a sunny, grassy area just off the road. Maybe it was just a coincidence that it derailed the conversation before it got any more unpleasant.

As soon as John sat down on the ground, he wondered if it was a mistake, because getting back up was going to be hard. They ate and drank and didn't talk much. Philip and Sally, as it turned out, hadn't been able to scrounge up more than a few granola bars and bottles of water before leaving. Greg, John, and Sherlock still had plenty in their individual rucksacks as well as in the duffle and could afford to share (besides, it wasn't like they could be selfish when they themselves would soon be imposing on Sally's aunt) but John worried about how long their supplies would last.

Sherlock ate and drank quickly, then took out one of the metal files he'd taken from the gardener's shed and started trying to sharpen one of the blades from the hedge shears. He kept frowning at it and testing the edge with his thumb, and John wasn't really sure if it was working or not. Meanwhile, Sally took off her shoes to rub her feet and change her socks, while John put on some sunblock (which Greg had thrown into his rucksack) and managed to talk Sherlock into using some as well. They hadn't even been out here long, and Sherlock's nose was already pink.

Greg tried to get them back up after about 20 minutes, but it was more like 30 before they were really moving again. Sherlock gave John a hand getting back up. His muscles had gotten stiff.

*

About another hour up the road, they entered a small town. It was no more than a few houses and a single shop, which they inspected cautiously from the outside as the door was splintered and standing open.

"No point going in. Nothing's left." A woman about their age with short blonde hair, leaning against a fence by the road, told them.

"But it's safe? Nobody's in there?" Sally asked.

The woman shook her head, and Philip and Sally went in to see what they could find. John could see from where he stood that the shelves were mostly stripped bare and the floor was covered with a jumbled mass of things.

"Are you alright? Are you out here all alone?" John asked the woman. She was the first person he'd seen who wasn't in a group.

"I've got a ride coming. And this." She showed John a few inches of a small handgun in her purse. It was incongruent with the large red rose on it. "So I'll be fine, but thanks for asking."

"A gun like that won't do much against the Lost," Sherlock said, eyeing it. "You have to destroy the brain or sever the spinal column."

"Oh? Have you killed any of them?" she asked.

Sherlock, John, and Greg exchanged a look. "Yes. One," John confessed. "It was about to bite someone," he added, as if he needed to justify it.

"Good for you," she said sincerely.

"You already knew how to destroy them. You've taken a few out already," Sherlock said, with certainty and a hint of an admiring smile, which she returned.

"Yes. I'm a good shot. Thanks for the tip anyway, though, but I really am alright."

John believed her, although he wished he could have done more — helped her somehow. They went inside, leaving her waiting for her ride.

There really wasn't much left to steal from the shop. The perishables were already off. The tinned foods and bottled drinks were all gone, along with all the snack foods. Some aisles were eerily untouched — like paper goods and spices, while most had cleared shelves and a litter of rubbish on the floor.

Still, they found food by checking some of the sections people had skipped in their haste. Sally found bags of walnuts, marshmallows, and chocolate chips by checking the baking goods aisle, and Greg found powdered soup mixes hidden among the spices. Sherlock went off on his own, poking through things and putting stuff into his rucksack. John and Philip braved the mess on the floor, and found two slightly smashed but still wrapped loaves of bread.

They didn't linger long. The empty shop was unnerving, not to mention that the stench from the rotting meat and produce was making their stomachs turn, and there was always the possibility that someone would come in. They were technically stealing, but John barely spared it a second thought at this point. When they left, the woman was gone. John hoped she'd safely gotten a ride to wherever she was going.

They went back to walking, just following the road through the trees. They didn't speak much, but when they did it was interesting to see where they all fell. It was no secret that Sally and Philip didn't like Sherlock. Greg, who was friends with all of them, naturally played peacemaker from a neutral position, while Philip and Sherlock were antagonistic toward each other, and John and Sally were somewhere in the middle. The afternoon was much like the morning had been — endless walking, seeing other groups on foot or people in cars sometimes, and taking occasional breaks for food and water.

During one of the breaks, Sherlock declined to eat or rest. Instead, he took the sharpened blade from the hedge shears and one of the clothes poles and made them into a kind of spear, held together with wire and duct tape. He wrapped the midpoint of the pole with duct tape to make a grip, and gave it a few experimental swings.

They got slower after each break, and John found it harder to ignore his aching muscles and feet. Starting around mid-afternoon, they stared watching for any good places to spend the night. What had seemed like fairly short distances by car or on a map were so much longer on foot, and while it wasn't exactly he middle of nowhere, the towns out here were few and far apart.

John was starting to worry, but he told himself they'd find something, that there was plenty of time. There was still strong sunlight slanting through the trees. But then they saw a group of people up ahead on the road.

No. _Not people_. The Infected.

"What do we do?" Sally asked, as they all stopped dead in their tracks. She looked around for shelter, but there was nothing but trees. "There isn't — I haven't seen anywhere —"

"Turn. Walk away calmly like we haven't seen them." They did as Greg said, resisting the urge to run.

"They're still coming this way," Philip hissed. "They've seen us."

"We have to climb a tree," Sherlock said.

"You think that'll stop them?" Sally asked. She glanced back and broke into a run. "Shit, oh shit."

They swerved off the road and into the woods, looking for a climbable tree. Behind them, the Infected followed them off of the road. They weren't exactly sprinters, but they weren't as slow as John had hoped they would be. There were only four of them, but they were as menacing as if they had been a larger group.

"What if they can climb? They're strong enough to just haul themselves up, hand over fist, aren't they?" John asked. He was finding himself split between a crazy urge to attack them head on, or to run and make sure his friends got as far away as possible.

"But they lack the agility and flexibility," Sherlock called, looking for a good tree to climb as he ran. John just tried to keep him in sight.

"You know that for a fact? Personally, I'd rather not find out! We should _run_." Philip made a gesture in the direction they'd been heading, sweeping his hand around to the side and then back to the center. "Get around them — pass them up."

"No, I think Sherlock's right," Greg shouted. "We're already tired — what'll we do, just keep running? _They don't get tired_."

"Whatever we're going to do, we have to do it!" Sally shouted.

"Here, this one," Greg called, at the trunk of a tree, looking up. "Sally —" he held out his hands, fingers interlaced to make a step for her.

Sally, to her credit, didn't hesitate. She thrust her weapon to Philip to free up her hands, and stepped into Greg's hands. As he boosted her up, she grabbed onto the trunk. John braced his hand against the back of her calf to help steady her as she swung her other leg over a branch.

"The duffle," John said, and she leaned back down, gripping the branch with her thighs, and caught it when he tossed it.

"John," Greg commanded, and John — knowing that speed was the only thing that would save them, tore his eyes off of the oncoming group of the Infected, passed his weapon to Sherlock, and took the boost from Greg. John hadn't climbed a tree since childhood, but _getting away from fucking zombies_ was a good motivation to do it again. He got a grip and pulled himself up, following Sally who was still steadily climbing up, her movement causing bits of bark to rain down. John grimaced as his bulky rucksack brushed against branches behind him.

"They're almost here," Sherlock called.

Philip was next, then Greg passed their weapons up. John held his breath, watching the Infected drawing closer. He took the shovel, which Philip had been carrying all day, and made his way out onto a branch that dipped down the lowest. He wouldn't have the right angle or leverage to damage their spinal columns badly enough to completely stop them unless he got in a very lucky shot, but he hoped he could at least knock them back. He'd be damned if he was going to let them get Sherlock.

"Come on then, Sherlock, come on," Greg said.

Sherlock dropped his spear at the base of the tree. "Once I'm up hand me that. Philip, get ready to help pull Greg up."

John heard Sherlock climbing up, but didn't take his eyes off of the oncoming Infected. They were close enough now that he could smell their stench. To his surprise, Sally crawled out on a branch next to him with the clothes pole, ready to attack them as well.

"Greg —" Sherlock shouted, and John glanced over his shoulder just long enough to see Philip, securely straddling a branch, grasping Greg's wrist. Sherlock, laid low along a lower branch, reached down for Greg's arm, and together they started to pull him up.

John gritted his teeth and swung the heavy shovel at the nearest of the Infected. It barely stumbled, no more fazed by it than an average person would be from a pillow to the face. John improved the strength of the hit for the next one and something crunched, but it just staggered back a few steps and kept coming, without even the self-preservation or intelligence to walk around and out of John's limited range. From her branch, Sally was having similar results.

Greg and Sherlock grunted behind him, and a shudder went through the tree as Greg steadied himself on a branch, pulling his legs up out of the reach of one of the Infected, whose fingertips were nearly skimming the soles of his trainers. They were all up in the tree now. Next to him, Sherlock was in a crouch, just watching.

"Let's hope they can't jump," Sally called.

"What do we do? Fight them?" Philip asked. "It's not doing much good, is it?"

"No. They don't even care," John told them, lining up another blow. He jabbed one of them in the side of the neck, but it hardly broke the skin, let alone the spine. "The angle's wrong."

The Infected clustered around the base of the tree, thudding against it and scraping at the bark with their fingers. Four was too many to fight — it had taken all of them to stop the one attacking the girl back at uni. Even on the lowest branches and using their longest weapons, they wouldn't be able to get in strong enough blows to their necks. They needed to regroup and think this through.

Greg stood up on the branch. "All we can do is go up."

The others were climbing up, holding their weapons awkwardly. John made his way back along the branch toward the trunk, where Sherlock was waiting for him. They climbed further up, far out of the reach of the Infected, until they found places that felt secure, where they could straddle a branch and lean against the tree trunk.

"Ok, so, what do we do?" Sally asked, panting from the climb. "Wait for dawn?"

"That's all we can do, other than dropping down and trying to fight them off or outrun them, which I don't much fancy," Greg said, slipping rucksack off his shoulders with a sigh.

"We're losing the light, and there could be more Lost anywhere," Sherlock pointed out. "Even if we were able to escape this group, we would still have the problem of needing to find shelter as quickly as possible."

"So as long as they don't learn how to climb, we're safe," Greg said.

Philip groaned and let his head sag forward against the trunk.

"And in the morning? The sunlight should be enough to drive them off, right?" John asked.

"We have to hope that it will. For now, ignore them and try to get comfortable." The tree shuddered slightly as Sherlock moved, repositioning himself. He was close enough that his knee brushed John's. "Here," he said, pulling something out of his bag. It was the extra belt John had made him pack. He wrapped it around the tree trunk and buckled it tightly. "Loop your belt under that, in case you doze off. Don't trust it to hold your weight up, though — it's just for balance."

"Right," John said. He took off his rucksack — wincing at his sore muscles now that the adrenaline had worn off — and looped one of the straps so that it was hanging from the branch he was sitting on. He watched and followed Sherlock's example as he slid his own belt out of its belt loops, passed one end under the belt that was around the trunk, and buckled it tightly around his chest, just under the armpits. It wasn't great, but it was better than feeling like he was going to fall to his death if he nodded off.

"Right, food coming down. Let's do this while there's enough light to see what we're doing," Sally said from above. She'd settled into a kind of Y intersection of the tree, her legs hanging down on either side. Philip had climbed up and was sitting near her. They passed the duffle down to Greg who took a few things out with a sigh and passed it on down to Sherlock and John. John didn't want to eat, but he took a bag of trail mix and a bottle of juice anyway. He would need all the energy he could get.

"What do we do, Sherlock. I mean what do we really do. About _them_. About all of this," John asked, quietly. Night was falling for real now, and he could just make out Sherlock in the twilight, putting on Greg's hoodie from the rucksack, then taking some things from the duffle and slipping them into his pocket. Up in the higher branches, Greg was leaning against the trunk, resting with his eyes closed, and Sally and Philip were having a quiet conversation, their heads leaned in close together.

Sherlock lit a cigarette, the first one John had seen him smoke that day. "You don't want my honest answer, John."

John's blood ran cold. "Yes, I do."

"In my various interactions with my peers since coming to uni, I've learned that others may not want to hear the truth when it's... unpleasant."

"Well, I'm more than a _peer_ , aren't I? And you're the smartest bloke I know, Sherlock. All along, it's felt like you're reading between the lines, seeing more of what's going on than the rest of us. We need you to help us get through this situation."

Sherlock shook his head. "You need me to help you get through this situation, and yet my opinion is that we _won't_ get through this situation."

"This — this particular situation, as in this tree?" John gestured toward it. "Or this situation as in, in general."

"Both. I'm afraid, John."

"Shit."

"Indeed."

Below, the Infected rustled and scratched incessantly. That, combined with the smell coming from them, made John shudder. "But you said the daylight would make them leave."

"It may, but think about where we are, John. How much direct sunlight do you imagine will reach them?"

John didn't need to look. The tree was thick with leaves. "So, come daybreak, if they don't back off, we either climb down and hope we're lucky enough to outrun them... which judging by how numb my legs and arse are already is going to be difficult. Or we stay up here until we die from dehydration." John laughed, humorlessly. "I'm for going out fighting. But you've got to do better than that, Sherlock. Look, we have all night. Come up with something. Come up with an alternative."

"Mmm." And Sherlock went silent, smoking. John let him.

*

John had first properly appreciated his own mortality one day when he was sixteen. He'd been waiting in the tube station, had overbalanced, and nearly fallen in front of a train. By some miracle he'd shifted his weight and regained his balanced — and the day went on like nothing had happened. No one had even seemed to notice it.

What made him really angry was that he hadn't even been doing anything dangerous when it happened. He'd been aware of his surroundings, sober, clear-headed, just standing there. He couldn't even explain why he'd lost his balance. But there had been plenty of times in his life when he _had_ been doing something stupid that should have gotten him killed — like fighting, or taking shortcuts through dodgy parts of town after dark, or jaywalking with the sound so loud on his headphones he couldn't hear a damn thing. Because those had been times when he'd been too frustrated with something in his life to care that he was taking a stupid risk, or else he'd been aware of the danger and just didn't believe it could touch him.

But not that day in the tube station. If he'd fallen in front of that train it would have been down to nothing more than plain bad luck. His death would have been so pointless, and he would have been such a passive participant in it — it wouldn't even have even been his fault.

What would the other people around him have thought if it had happened? Would they have glimpsed a surprised expression on his face as he fell, and that would be the last impression he made on anyone in his life?

Then what would they do? Would it be like a horror film, a splash of blood, gasps and screams? Police coming and putting up _police line — do not cross_ tape, standing over his mangled body and shaking heir heads? And the people who saw it — would they go home and hug their kids extra tight? Would the tube driver be so traumatized that he resigned?

No, more likely they'd all think to themselves, 'Probably suicidal. Probably on drugs. What a selfish way to off yourself, making us all see it.' Angry at him, so they wouldn't have to feel bad or guilty for their selfish thoughts. And so, John realized in a flash that he could die, it could be at any moment, and that his death could be entirely pointless.

Now, with those Infected down there... he could become one of them. He wouldn't complete school, or have a career, or go on to do anything great. He would never see what his relationship with Sherlock was developing _(blooming, expanding, exploding into existence)_ into. He'd just stop having any value as a person and become a _thing_. Part of the problem, part of the threat, just another monster who menaced the few healthy survivors until one of them hacked his head off.

John raised his head from his light stupor. In the dim light, Sherlock's face looked so calm, with his eyes shut and his hands steepled.

There had to be way out of this. There had to be a way for them to survive.


	5. Chapter 5

A loud pop woke John from a doze around dawn. He reflexively grabbed his weapon and looked down, trying to figure out what was going on. It was light enough to see, but the sunlight was still dim. One of the Infected's heads was hanging off of its neck, lolling to the side like a wilting flower. It slumped to its knees, then fell face down, and blood oozed out from the back of its neck.

A moment later it happened again — two quick pops, and two sprays of dark red shot out from the neck of a second Infected. It fell forward, hitting the tree trunk and rotating with the impact to fall on its back.

"What's going on?" Greg shouted. "Was that a _gun_? Who is firing?"

"Who cares?" Sally called. "Just get ready to go."

John hastily unbuckled the belt that he'd used to strap himself to the tree trunk. He'd gone dangerously numb and stiff overnight and was worried that he might have trouble standing or keeping his balance. He rotated so he was sitting on the branch instead of straddling it, wincing as his circulation was fully restored to his legs, and put his rucksack back on.

It was disconcerting to see the remaining Infected fail to react to their group being shot at. If they were aware that they were under fire and had just lost two of their own, they didn't show it. They didn't even look around to see who or what had attacked them. They were still just doing what they'd done all night — reaching up and clawing uselessly at the trunk of the tree — which by now had destroyed their fingers, leaving smears of blood all over the bark.

"Get ready! I don't have unlimited bullets here!" a woman's voice shouted from the direction the shots had come from. A fourth shot hit another one of the Infected in the jaw. It didn't fall over though.

"Two left — we can take them," Greg called.

"Or we could run." That was Sherlock, who already had his spear in hand and his pack on his back.

John, who was lowest, called up, "Don't climb down the trunk! It's covered in infected blood! We'll have to drop down."

The remaining Infected finally seemed to realize that something was happening. They moved their heads around in quick, jerky snaps, sniffing the air for a moment to pinpoint where the threat was. Stepping and tripping over the bodies of the two fallen, they moved away from the tree, toward the area the woman's voice had come from.

"Now!" Greg shouted.

One by one they climbed down to the lowest branch, cursing at their stiffness and aches from the uncomfortable night, then dropped to the ground.

A tree nearby shuddered and shook as someone climbed up it — John just got a glimpse of a blonde woman pulling herself up — and the two remaining Infected circled and clawed at the trunk, just as they had at the tree the rest of them had spent the night in.

"Right, move in fast in pairs and tackle them to the ground, face down if you can so they can't bite you," Greg ordered, rocking on the balls of his feet in anticipation. "Watch out for the blood. One of us takes the sharpest blade and does the chopping. We take out the one she just shot first — the jaw's half off already so we might get an easier shot at the neck, yeah? Once it's done, we move on to the second one. Any questions?"

"Yeah — who does what?" Philip asked.

"Greg's strongest, he can get the heads off fastest. With this," Sherlock said, handing over the blade he'd sharpened the on the previous day. "Although as I've said before, we'd do better to just ignore —"

"No, Sherlock. She helped us and we're helping her," John snapped, while Sally made a disgusted noise.

"And which of us takes which of them?" Philip asked.

Greg gave them a quick appraising look. "Sally and Philip on the injured one. Sherlock and John on the second one. Ready?"

"Watch the hands, they're bloody," John said.

Then they were running, and John seemed to feel and register each sensation and observation in detail, as if everything had slowed down and his mind had ages to take everything in. The way the ground gave slightly under his feet as he ran, the damp, mossy smell of the woods, the weak, cold sunlight falling in stripes between the tree trunks, the texture of the wooden clothes pole in his hands, the way the Infected still sometimes looked human to him from some angles and his mind struggled to make sense of how _wrong_ they were.

Their target was on the left. They tackled it — with Sherlock slamming into it first, then John hitting it lower and from the side, making it twist as it fell so that it landed hard on its face in the dirt. John got the pole across its shoulders and held it down. Sherlock planted one foot on its arm, keeping its bloody, mangled hand away from them, and put his other knee into its lower back. It kicked and bucked, and let out wheezy, angry-sounding grunts — each with a fresh burst of fetid air — but between them, they managed to keep it pinned down. It was hard work. John's muscles were shaking already, and it was taking all of his focus. He didn't think they'd be able to do this for more than a few minutes. Dimly he heard Greg, Philip, and Sally struggling with the one they were fighting — but all he could think about just then was getting through this so he could make sure Sherlock was safe.

Soon, Philip and Sally joined them, piling onto its thrashing lower body, and Greg — sweating and panting — brought the blade over. In a few moments, it was all over. It still took more than one blow even with the sharpened blade, but it was a definite improvement over the first Infected they'd killed back on campus.

The woman dropped down out of the tree and they all wordlessly sprinted for the road, leaving behind the still-twitching bodies and not looking back.

"Thanks for that," the blonde said, when they stopped several minutes later in a clearing by the side of the road to catch their breath.

"No, thank you. That was incredible," Sally said, wiping sweat from her face with her sleeve. Greg dropped to his knees and wiped the infected blood off of the blade onto the grass with shaking arms.

"You're from yesterday — outside the supermarket," John said, having finally getting a closer look at her.

"Yup. And you're the students armed with the gardening tools. My ride got delayed, unfortunately, by something blocking the road." She pointed in the direction they were heading. "We had to make other plans, which means I'm taking this part of the road on foot for now — lucky for you. I'm Mary Morstan, by the way." She smiled, seemingly unfazed by the ordeal they'd just been through.

They all introduced themselves and agreed that since they were heading the same way they should all walk together. But first they took about fifteen minutes to clean themselves up and get ready for the day ahead, which mainly meant changing into any clean clothes they had, going to the loo in the bushes (which was disgusting), and trying to stretch out their cramped muscles. They all used liberal amounts of Greg's hand sanitizer after their contact with the Infected during the fight. John brushed his teeth for about two minutes — the stench of the Infected seemed to be lingering at the back of his mouth after breathing it all night — and surreptitiously checked Sherlock's back when he changed his tee-shirt for a black button-up.

"I would happily murder someone for a cup of coffee right now," Philip grumbled, washing down some pain-killers from the first aid kit with bottled water.

"Oi, tell me about it," Sally said.

Sherlock and John exchanged a look. John had to admit, that while he would certainly enjoy coffee or tea at the moment, he wasn't suffering from the lack of it. Sherlock had been right — although he didn't need to look quite so pleased with himself about it.

John turned on his mobile hopefully, but he still had no signal and shut it off to save the battery with a sigh. If Clara really had been infected, what would have happened to Harry by now?

"How do you know how to shoot like that?" Greg asked Mary as they started walking.

"Laser tag. Worked there every single summer," Mary told them breezily.

Sherlock looked skeptical about her claim, but didn't say anything. Maybe even he had the good sense to cut some slack for the person who had just saved their lives.

"It was amazing," John said.

"Thanks, but in fairness that group back there was standing still, and I was able to get close enough to get good shots. I couldn't have done that on the run," Mary admitted.

"We were hoping daylight would get them to leave," Sally said, stretching her shoulders and arms as they walked.

"They may have moved off once it got brighter, but — hang on, were you up that tree all night?" Mary glanced around at all of them, amused.

"'Fraid so," Sally replied. "We wanted to find a better shelter somewhere along the road before it got dark, but that didn't happen."

"Well what about tonight? You're heading this way — do you lot have a destination in mind?"

"My aunt lives out this way. We're hoping..." Sally trailed off.

They were all silent for a moment, knowing they may not find any shelter at the end of their walk that day. John stared at Sherlock's rucksack as he walked, at the scribbles a younger, more carefree Greg had made on it in permanent ink — names of bands and friends, catchphrases from films, a cluster of doodled skulls.

Mary nodded, and said gently, "Well, just in case you see any other groups of the Infected like that... Look, I've been out here for a few days now, and I've seen some things. Once they've scented someone, they'll follow them. That group this morning — I knew they'd fixated on all of you, and unless I walked right under their noses or had a freely bleeding wound, they weren't likely to leave you to go after me. Even after I started shooting, it took them a while to recognize that I was a threat and give up on you."

"So generally, in order to stay safe, one should avoid responding to calls for help," Sherlock said, as if it were significant. "Leave others to their fate and walk on."

"Generally, yeah, if keeping safe is what you care most about," Mary said, giving Sherlock a long look. It was appraising, but she didn't seem angry or repulsed by his attitude. "Don't underestimate them, though. They can always be unpredictable."

"So they grouped up like that, then, because they were all drawn to us, not because they were somehow organized or working together?" John asked.

"Hmm, yes and no. They don't exactly work together, but they do tend to group up, which certainly makes them more dangerous. But I haven't seen anything even resembling cooperation from them."

"Thank God for that," Sally said. "But why did they come after us like that? I mean, I get why infected people might lash out at whoever was around them, like family or doctors, but why chase us down like that? Why spend the night trying to get at us? What exactly would they have done if they'd gotten their hands on us?"

Mary's face grew hard, and John saw a flash of just how much she'd been through in the past few days. "Now... I don't really know, and I don't pretend to understand it, but from what I've seen, they generally attack with their teeth..."

"Right, we saw that much on the news." Greg said.

"Well, it's more than just biting, though," Mary said, watching her feet as she walked. "I've seen the people they leave behind, and they were ripped open. Some of the bodies didn't have much left when they were done with them, so they were dead and stayed dead. But the rest, even the badly injured ones _will_ get up again. They become like them."

Greg gave her a hard look. "What do you mean _didn't have much left when they were done with them_?"

"I mean, after they attack, the bodies are missing pieces. Eaten." Mary looked grave.

"Jesus Christ," John whispered, and looked at Sherlock, hoping his friend would jump in with an explanation of why it couldn't possibly be true. But he didn't. He was still being abnormally quiet.

"I can't say for sure that they — the Infected — were responsible for that. There are a lot of scavengers out here, taking advantage of the situation. But something was eating parts of the bodies."

"They really are zombies. Fucking zombies!" Philip was pale, and his eyes were bulging a bit. Greg patted his arm, but even he looked shaken, and he scanned the woods on both sides of the road.

"Well, I haven't seen them going for brains. Seems to mostly be internal organs," Mary said.

"God, what a horrible way to go," Sally said, her arms wrapped around herself.

They fell into silence again as they walked, and John felt the weight of sleep deprivation on him, mixing with the horror of everything else going on. Despite dozing a little in the tree, he hadn't gotten anything like real sleep. It had been one of the longest, hardest nights of his life. He knew it had been for all of them. But in the dark, all the times he'd woken up from the horrific images his mind had conjured up when he closed his eyes, Sherlock's knee had been against his like a touchstone.

But they still had a long day ahead of them. It wouldn't do for John to psych himself out now.

They hadn't seen any traffic yet, or any other pedestrians, although there were the occasional piles of debris at the side of the road — luggage people had dumped when it got too heavy to carry on. It was bleak, like little admissions that they were failing, that the situation was getting the best of them

The heard the sound of a motor up ahead, and Mary's head snapped up. A motorcycle slowed to a stop in the middle of the road, ridden by a woman with long dark hair. Mary breathed out a sigh of "Janine," then turned back to the group, looking apologetic. "Look, I've got to go. I wish I had a way to bring all of you with me, I really do. Stay in the sun, but don't count on it to keep you safe. They aren't vampires. They won't explode in a shower of glitter or anything. But they like the dark better than the light, and given a choice between going after someone in the sunlight and someone in the shadow, they'll go for the shadow. These woods are a deathtrap — once you're away from here, find someplace with a lot of direct sunlight. Alright? You take care of yourselves."

"You too," John said, wishing she could stay with them, but knowing she had a much better chance of survival on a motorcycle than they did on foot.

They all said their goodbyes as she got on the motorcycle. Her gaze lingered on John, but maybe that was his imagination. Then she was gone, and John realized he didn't even have her mobile number so they could let each other know they were safe when this was all over.

*

Around mid-morning, they came upon a mass of cars. They were stopped in the middle of the road, abandoned, crashed into each other, crumpled and twisted from impact. It must have been the roadblock Mary had mentioned and the reason her friend had picked her up on a motorcycle, because there was absolutely no way to get through it in a car or even around it in the dense woods.

"My God," Sally breathed.

As they got nearer, they could see more of the grisly details. Broken windows — every single car seemed to have at least one. Glass all over the pavement, clothing strewn across the road from suitcases that had burst open. Blood, in puddles and drops, lacing the glass and making smeary marks where things being dragged through it.

And remains. Ravens were pecking at a pile of something on the ground that John didn't look too closely at. Other than that, there was no movement.

"Hello?" John called. "Any survivors? Anyone need help?"

"This has been here for a day, at least. Everything is cold. The cars that were running have used up their petrol," Sherlock said. He and Greg waded right into the center of it all, studying it, speculating on the chain of events that had unfolded here, using skid marks and the locations of broken glass and blood on the pavement as clues.

"Come on, is this really important?" Philip asked.

Sherlock gave him a look. "To deduce what role the Lost played in a situation like this? To understand their methods for killing and consuming people? Learning whether or not they had the intelligence to plan and stage a trap like this, or if they just happened upon it? If they have the reasoning ability to smash windows out to get at the people inside, or if it was caused by human thieves later? No. Not important _at all_ , Anderson."

"You can't seriously read all of that from this?" Philip asked, looking from Sherlock to Greg.

"He can, mate. Some of it is just logic," Greg said. "See, like this here." He pointed to something on the ground. Philip actually moved closer to see it and join in their discussion about it.

John took advantage of the break to stretch and get out a bottle of water, although he kept his weapon at the ready.

"Think there's enough left of anybody to get up again, like Mary was telling us?" Sally asked, coming to stand by John and glancing over the scene. "Ugh, I'd rather keep walking. This gives me the creeps. He's sure into it though, isn't he?" She nodded at Sherlock, who was still speaking to Philip and Greg and gesturing animatedly at the mess in the road.

Feeling uncomfortable, John didn't reply. He'd actually been thinking how good it was to see Sherlock showing an interest in something again.

"John, you're a normal enough bloke. So why him?"

John shrugged, not liking where the conversation was going. "We just clicked."

"I've seen plenty of people 'click' — doesn't always mean it's healthy or a good idea."

"Well sometimes you just like someone. Do you really have to pick it apart?" John asked.

"Look, I'm honestly not trying to give you a hard time here. I just — when I see people who might be getting into a bad situation, I have to say something about it, that's all." Sally shrugged.

"I understand that but... I know he's difficult. And _different_. But... it's not like that's enough to just turn your back on someone, is it? It's not always about someone just being nice or easy to get along with. Things aren't that black and white." John crossed his arms and looked at the cars, the road, the trees, anything but Sally. "And Sherlock and I being friends or... or something _other_ than friends... is about a lot of different things. It works for us."

"But think about how he treats people. How he manipulates them. All that matters to him is that people think he's clever, and he'll do anything to prove it."

"That's _not_ all that matters to him," John said, hotly.

Sally held up her hands. "Alright. Well, maybe you do matter to him, but that doesn't mean that your feelings do. Doesn't mean he's not selfish about it. So just remember that." Sally walked a few feet away, and busied herself with something in her rucksack.

John waited, quietly seething. Usually he didn't get so worked up, but the exhaustion was really getting to him.

Sherlock, Greg, and Philip (who seemed surprisingly interested now) came back with what they'd deduced from the evidence. They believed a huge group of Infected had stepped into the road suddenly. Some drivers had plowed into them, even intentionally run them over, but others had swerved and crashed which set off a chain reaction of crashes. The Infected _had_ broken in windows and pulled people out of their cars — but whether or not they had done so because they were intelligent enough to figure out how, or because they had mindlessly thrown themselves against the glass until it broke, they weren't sure. Other drivers had found themselves blocked in and had abandoned their cars and had been attacked. The wounded had all either been eaten or infected, and had already turned and moved on.

And as far as they could tell, Greg told them gravely, the Infected had gone the same direction they were heading.

*

When the sun was directly overhead and at its brightest, they stopped in an open field and agreed to take an hour-long break there, and then to keep going without any more breaks until they reached their destination. After eating, and Greg promising that he would stay alert and on watch, John lay down with his folded jacket under his head as a pillow and dozed.

When they woke him, John realized that resting had actually made him feel _worse_. When he got up, he was so dizzy and wrong-footed that the ground lurched violently under him. He wavered on his feet and Sherlock grabbed his shoulders to steady him.

"What's wrong?" Sherlock demanded.

"No, it's nothing. I'm fine, just groggy and a little achey," John said quickly. He didn't want anyone to worry about him. "Maybe too much sun."

"Drink something." Sherlock pulled out one of the bottles of cranberry juice without releasing John's other shoulder.

"I had plenty of water earlier. Really, Sherlock, I'll be fine."

Sherlock stared at him, then circled behind him and pulled John's shirt up to check his back.

John held his breath until Sherlock let it go. "Am I —?"

"No. You're not, John." Sherlock stroked John's back through his shirt, as if touching the place to reassure himself that it was free of the discoloration.

John sighed and pivoted toward Sherlock and let his head fall forward, onto Sherlock's shoulder.

Philip grumbled something and Sally cleared her throat. At that, John stepped away from Sherlock and out from under his hands, suddenly aware that they were being watched.

Sherlock caught him, though, and pressed a brief kiss to his mouth before letting him go.

Embarrassed, John picked up his rucksack to avoid having to look at the others, who already had their packs on and were standing around waiting impatiently. Shrugging on his own bag, John thought angrily that he didn't care what they thought, but that he'd really liked it if they would mind their own business.

"I think you just like doing that to put them off," John told Sherlock as if he were joking, but really there was a lot of confusion behind it and it came out more sharply than he meant it to.

Sherlock didn't reply.

It wasn't until later that John realized he hadn't seen a single sign of affection pass between Sally and Philip this whole time, and nobody had said anything about where Philip's girlfriend was, and maybe all of that had something to do with their reaction to what was happening between Sherlock and John.

*

That afternoon they just got slower and slower, no matter how much they tried to hurry. Exhaustion and fear had caught up to them. Eventually they were moving so slowly and stiffly, they were afraid they might be mistaken for the Infected at a distance.

They were entering the last stage of their trip and it seemed to be taking forever. The plan they'd made back in the dorm room had them reaching Sally's aunt's house by early afternoon, but it was becoming clear that wasn't going to happen. They pressed on, crabby and short with each other, knowing that a single delay or complication would mean spending another night out here.

The sun was already touching the horizon when they spotted the first houses at the outskirts of the town. It was a relief to be there — until they got close enough to notice that the none of the houses had lights on, the place was eerily quiet, and most of the houses had broken windows and doors.

Sally led them to a side street with houses crouching under the woods. As they got close, she broke into a run... right to the broken-in front door of a house that was as dark as the rest of them.


	6. Chapter 6

"Sally!" Philip ran after her.

"Careful going in there, careful, could still be someone in there!" Greg shouted, going after them.

John and Sherlock exchanged a look and followed them.

It was clear that the house was empty — there weren't any bodies, living, dead, or infected — but Sally, pale and shaky, kept searching. The kitchen in particular had been badly rifled, likely by people looking for food — but other parts of the house looked like they had been disturbed as well, and John couldn't read the clues well enough to tell if there had been a struggle or violence.

Sherlock and John lurked near the front door. John felt like an intruder — he didn't know Sally all that well, let alone her aunt, and as much as she disliked Sherlock, he was sure she wouldn't want to see either of them right now. In addition to that, the house made John uneasy. He glanced outside, at the lengthening shadows. As much of a relief as taking off his pack from his sweaty, sore back would be, he didn't. If they had to run, he wanted to have it with him.

"There are no infected in here currently. The house doesn't have the smell," Sherlock commented. "But I haven't been able to study how long it would linger. And it certainly doesn't mean they couldn't come back."

Sally overheard him and gave up her search. "That thing you did — the stuff you figured out just by looking at the wrecked cars — can you do that here?"

"Yes, of course I can."

Greg stepped closer, almost getting between them. "But not right now. It's nearly dark."

"Where are we going to stay tonight? Here?" Philip asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "No, there's nowhere secure enough here. Judging by the outside of the house, it merely has a crawl space rather than a true cellar, so unless this house just happens to contain a bank vault or a walk-in freezer —"

Greg managed to silence Sherlock with a look — a trick John was going to have to learn — and gripped Sally's arm. "Sally. I'm so sorry, but what we need to think about now is shelter for the night. We can come back here in the morning if..."

"Right. Right," Sally said, slightly dazed. "Of course."

"Do you know of anywhere we can go?" Greg asked.

Sally shook her head. "Sorry. Only been here a few times. I don't know the area that well."

"We start looking immediately, then," Sherlock said, ducking out the front door.

John followed him, unsure of what Sherlock was hoping to find. But barely two houses up the street, they had a lucky break. A young man slipped down into a kind of dip next to the road. They sped up, and were just in time to see him locking a metal grate across a wide culvert from inside. Apparently it was drainage system, but it currently looked dry.

"Excuse me, mate!" John called.

The young man, looking worried and slightly panicky, tested the lock and stared at them. He was thin and wiry, too pale, unkempt, and with reddish eyes, but he didn't appear to be infected.

There were running footsteps from behind and a moment later Sally, Greg, and Philip had caught up. "Oi, you!" Sally called, rushing forward. "What happened here? My aunt's house, the one two doors up. Do you know what happened there? That's all I want to know."

The man, who could have clearly vanished back into the darkness, paused. "Laura's your aunt?"

Sally nodded.

"Sorry, but I don't know. I lived a few streets up. It was like that when I came round."

"But have you seen her? Or before — was she alright?" Sally asked.

"I don't know. Sorry love, truly. Houses round here all got broke into, but i don't know what happened to the people in them before that."

Greg stepped forward. "I'm afraid we need shelter for the night. We were hoping we could stay there, but now we can't, and it's getting dark. Could we —" Greg gestured toward the culvert, "possibly —"

The man held up his hands. "I don't have food or nothing. You won't like it. It's cold and wet in here —"

"It would be fine — it would be _wonderful_ ," Greg said. "We just walked for two days thinking we'd have a safe place to stay when we got here. We didn't sleep last night. We just need to rest."

The man's eyes were wide and fearful. "I have mates down here. It's already full. Got kids from the neighborhood in here, told their parents I'd keep 'em safe. Can't go letting everyone in here —" He was already backing away.

"We're not going to hurt anyone," John said.

"We can help protect them! We know how to fight the Infected. We've done it already!" Greg shouted.

"For pity's sake, you just said you _knew_ Sally's aunt! At least let her in!" Philip shouted.

"Don't have room. Don't have enough sleeping bags. The kids are scared already." He was about two seconds from turning and running. He had already decided he wasn't going to let them in — John saw it in his eyes.

Then Sherlock handed John his weapon and stepped right up to the grate, sliding his rucksack off his shoulder. In a tone that was casual and businesslike, far removed from how desperate and pleading the rest of them sounded, he said, "We have things to barter. I'm sure we can make it worth your while."

Surprisingly, the young man's eyes flicked greedily to Sherlock's rucksack as he unzipped it, and he stepped forward against the grate for a better look. It was this thing Sherlock had sometimes with the most unlikely people — a kinship. The two spoke quietly and Sherlock showed him things in the bag. Sensing the fragility of the situation, the rest of them waited quietly where they were.

Sally rubbed her head and winced, like she was getting a bad headache. Uneasy, John glanced all around, watching their backs. The closest house had a broken window, and the one across the street with the neat garden had some latticework with climbing plants that had been knocked down. Clearly the neighborhood had seen a lot of trouble recently.

"Alright, I'll let you in," the young man called to them, "but we all see each other's backs first."

One by one they took off their packs and pulled up their shirts to show their backs. John realized they hadn't checked each other for a while. They were all clear, and so was the man in the grate — although he looked slightly pathetic with his thin, holey jumper pulled up to slow his pale back.

Through the grate, Sherlock passed several small things to him which he shoved into his baggy jeans pockets. Still jittery, he unlocked the grate, let them in. The culvert was dark and there was a trickle of water at the bottom. It smelled foul — not like the Infected had, but like urine and rubbish. It was low enough that John had to duck his head and hold his clothes pole horizontally. He was sure it must truly be uncomfortable for the taller people in the group.

"I'm Wiggins, by the way," the man told them, chaining and locking the grate behind them. He pulled out a torch and they followed him deeper into the tunnel.

"What did you give him?" John asked Sherlock, trying to keep his voice from carrying in the echoey space. "Was it food?"

"No. He needed some things more desperately than food," Sherlock said.

"Such as?" John prompted him.

"Remember when I checked the other dorm rooms around yours? They were mostly cleaned out of the essentials — food, valuables, weapons — but people overlooked things. Pharmaceuticals."

John sighed. "Sherlock, did you just give him _drugs_ in exchange for us staying here?"

"Prescription painkillers and a few others — not the drugs of choice for our friend here, but he's yearning for a fix and they'll help a bit. Though I would have brought him what he wanted if I'd been able to get my hands on it."

The tunnel reached a bend about fifteen feet back. They rounded the corner and it opened up into a slightly larger space. There were pallets on the ground, giving them a dry, level floor with space for the trickle of water to go under, and on top of them were some blankets and sleeping bags. There was another metal grate at the far side of the small room, and the tunnel got too narrow to pass through beyond it. Some air was moving through it, with a muddy smell.

The line about protecting scared kids down here had obviously been a lie. There were two people sitting there — a man that Wiggins introduced as Angelo, and a woman named Soo Lin. They both looked exhausted and barely seemed to care that there were newcomers.

"You can take whatever spots are free," Wiggins said.

Sherlock and John sat down in an open space near the back grate, where the floor had been slightly padded out with some flattened cardboard boxes, while Sally, Greg, and Philip found room against one of the walls. John took off his pack with a sigh. He wondered if it would be terribly rude to just go to sleep immediately. He was so tired and anxious, his stomach hurt and he couldn't imagine forcing food down. This place was miserable and he never thought he'd be glad to be someplace like this.

Still — having metal walls on all sides of him, that sturdy grate chained and locked shut, and a promise of a place to lie down and sleep that night made John feel more secure and safe than he had since, well... since that night in Sherlock and Greg's dorm, when they'd stayed up half the night talking, and Mike had still been with them. John knew the problems they still had ahead of them were terrible, but having a night to rest was like a wall in front of him — it shielded him from worrying about anything else, and he couldn't see beyond it.

Wiggins took a long drink from a bottle of Coke — likely washing down some of the pills Sherlock had given them. Then, as if having gotten one important matter out of the way before moving on to the next, he told them, "There are rules. No letting anybody in or telling anybody about this place. No causing friction with anyone else or you'll have to leave. You have to work to stay, and working means going out in the day to find food and water, which you share with all of us. It's getting harder and harder finding shops that still have anything, but we have some tricks. But be careful. Not to freak anyone out, but we lost two of us out there yesterday."

"The combination to that lock —" Greg began, pointing toward the opening of the culvert.

"I have it and Angelo has it and that's all. We've got seniority," Wiggins said.

"Yes, and what if something happens to you and we're locked out — or in?" Sherlock asked.

"Well I'm not giving it to you," Wiggins said testily, as if others had already tried to get it out of him and it had caused trouble. "If you want to go in or out you'll just have to wait for one of us."

John could see all kinds of potential problems with that, but was simply too tired to argue. Wiggins seemed to have finished, so he made Sherlock stand up for a minute so he could spread out their bedrolls. It was undoubtedly going to be an uncomfortable night. They'd been hoping they'd be in a house tonight — taking showers, maybe even eating a hot meal and sleeping in a bed... but they'd never exactly had a lot of hope for Sally's aunt's house working out, especially not after they'd gotten out on the road and seen how bad things were. He couldn't fault Sally for her plan — it had been the best one they'd come up with. And certainly they had made it here on foot — if only the house hadn't been compromised, it would have been fine. Although, he realized now, a regular house wouldn't keep the Infected out anyway. But it was hard, even now, even knowing better, not to think longingly about just going back there and taking the risk of sleeping in a real house.

John realized two things after he laid down to go to sleep; first, that he hadn't eaten anything since lunch and it was probably making him feel worse, and secondly that Sherlock seemed to have placed himself protectively between John and everything else. Those were John's last thoughts before he fell asleep.

John slept, but not well. More than once he jerked violently in his sleep, waking himself up. Once, he flung his arm out and whacked Sherlock, who grunted and started.

"Shit, sorry," John whispered in the dark.

"John?" Sherlock sounded sleepy and confused.

"Yeah."

John's dreams that night were indistinct, a writhing sort of mass of horror and danger just beyond comprehension. Sometimes it clarified into things coming _at_ him, latching onto him, or slipping down the metal grate beside him to swoop down onto him — winged, flying things. It was a bad night, with the kind of sleep that was more tiring than being awake and that left one groggy and uncomfortable the next day. But still it was better than the night in the tree.

At some point, John woke, shaking and sweating. Sherlock grasped his shoulders in the dark to steady him. As if he'd decided that physically restraining John might stop his flailing for the rest of the night, Sherlock scooted closer and half-flopped on John, pinning him at the shoulder and thigh.

"John?"

"Hmm?"

"It's not just to put them off, you know. But I'll stop if you want me to."

John didn't know what Sherlock was on about — which wasn't unusual where Sherlock was concerned. It took him a few confused moments to remember what he'd snapped at Sherlock about earlier on the road, about kissing him when Sally and Philip were looking.

"Oh. No, Sherlock, I didn't mean it like that," John whispered. "Don't... I don't want you to stop."

"I don't care if they see. I don't care what they think."

"I know, and as far as I'm concerned, if it makes them uncomfortable they can just fuck right off. Just..." John hesitated, and took a deep breath. "Just tell me this isn't one of your social experiments or anything like that."

"You think I'd do an experiment during a crisis?"

"Um... I have met you, you know."

"Well, I wouldn't do one while you were in danger," Sherlock said. "So no, it's not an experiment and it never was. Just an impulse on my part. One I've not had before."

"Well... alright, then." John cleared his throat. "Carry on."

They'd got through the whole whispered conversation without using the word _kiss_ once. John was properly impressed by them.


	7. Chapter 7

When John woke up and checked his watch, it was close to noon. Everyone else was still asleep — except for Wiggins, who scratched his head and gave John a casual, "Morning."

John woke up the others. Sherlock frowned at his watch, Sally didn't seem to have slept much, Greg swore, and Philip kept trying to go back to sleep. When they were finally up and coherent, they followed Wiggins down the tunnel so he could let them out. They were going to investigate Sally's aunt's house today.

"I feel like a bloody farmer with this," Philip grumbled, carrying his hoe.

"Listen, I should have told you — during the day we go out and look for food, then bring it back and share with everybody. That's the rules, if you want to stay," Wiggins said. "Just be back before dark and me or Angelo'll let you in."

*

Inside the house, Sherlock spent a few minutes swooping around and inspecting things, before launching off into a long speech about Sally's aunt developing the discoloration on her back and spending long hours alone, knowing she was infected, before leaving the house in search of a place to commit suicide —

John yanked Sherlock across the room by the hood of his sweatshirt, leaving a tearful Sally with Philip and Greg.

"Problem?" Sherlock asked.

"You might say that."

"I was right, though, just look at this smudge here —"

"No more, please, Sherlock. Let her process what's happened. Without any more details."

"John, the details are the important bits, why, without them —"

"No! Knowing too much about it is going to make it worse for her," John said, sternly.

Sherlock crossed his arms sulkily and John waited patiently while trying to do anything other than think about how amazing a nice hot breakfast would be.

"Survivors from nearby, but not this neighborhood. A mechanic and a librarian. Been sleeping rough for two nights now. Trying to keep their spirits up, but failing," Sherlock said.

 _What?_ "Hmm?"

"Outside, John."

John followed Sherlock's gaze out the window and saw a couple with two children, uninfected (as far as he could tell from here), walking up the street. John didn't have to ask how Sherlock knew they were failing at keeping their spirits up. The adults' falsely-cheerful expressions made his chest ache.

"So we're not the only survivors here." A floorboard creaked as Greg came to stand with them.

"No. They must have found a safe place to hide, and now they're out looking for food. But these houses along here have all been cleaned out already, so they won't find any here. Which means _we'll_ have to venture further out to find food today — if we are actually going to do as Wiggins asked us, and wish to remain with his group."

"Seems like the best plan at the moment, unless you have another one," John said.

"Yes. We move on immediately."

"Sherlock! Are you serious?" Greg asked.

"We shouldn't stay with them," Sherlock said. "It's not safe."

"But you got us in, remember? Hell, you traded away half a fucking pharmacy to do it," John said.

"Yes, because we needed a safe place urgently yesterday evening. That doesn't mean we should stay there indefinitely. We should use today to find a new shelter instead of looking for food. We have enough left for a few days." Sherlock shook the duffle bag.

"Dunno how much safer we can get than having _metal on all sides of us_ , though." But Greg sounded slightly hesitant, as if he couldn't dismiss Sherlock entirely.

"The problem with a nice, dark, enclosed place to sleep in is that that's the exact kind of place the Lost would be likely to spend their _days_ in. If the lock were to be left open, we could potentially come back to find it overrun and occupied."

"So you're saying we _shouldn't_ sleep in a secure, enclosed space. Well, thanks for that!" Greg's voice rose. "What do we do then — sleep during the day, in the sunlight?"

Sherlock shook his head. "A secure place that can be locked is still best, but it's problematic. That's just it. There's no escape route. There's one entrance, and if the Lost catch our scent and group around it — as they did around the base of the tree — we have no way out other than to fight them off... and we're not going to be lucky enough to have someone with a gun show up again and pick them off for us, just because she fancies John."

"Hmm, that's true," Greg said.

"She — she what now?" John asked.

"Fancied you, John." Sherlock said quickly, and plunged on. "On top of that, there's one lock with a combination that we're not privy to. We could easily get locked out — or _in_. They're risking bringing the infection back everyday. Didn't you notice? Wiggins checked our backs, but not Soo Lin's or Angelo's. And just checking isn't enough anyway. It can take several hours for the marks to begin showing up. Wiggins lets everyone split up during the day, then they come back in and he chains the grate shut. If someone did become infected, they could just come back in, go through the hell hours during the night without telling anyone, make the transition, and we wouldn't have any way to escape because we wouldn't know the combination to the lock."

"Maybe we can, I dunno, convince them to stay in groups and watch each other. Check for bites as well as the marks on the back. Something," Greg suggested.

Sherlock looked skeptical. "Perhaps, but they're sloppy. I don't trust them. I'd planned to move on today, but I let myself sleep too late. We should have got up early and given ourselves more time to look for an alternative. We'd have a full day of sunlight ahead to move along and find a better, more secure place instead. Maybe I shouldn't have slept at all. I didn't think I would."

"Sherlock, you were exhausted. We all were. You can't blame yourself for having a lie in," John said.

"But don't you see? They slept late too, and wasted precious hours of sunlight when they needed it to scavenge for food. See what I mean? They're not focused enough on keeping themselves alive. We've got to prepare for tomorrow. Get up early and be ready to move."

"Look," Greg said. "Sherlock, you've got some good points, but we're all still tired and for the time being we have a fairly safe —" he raised his hands to stop the protest from Sherlock — "I said _fairly safe_ place to sleep, and an opportunity to stop and get some supplies and rest. I say we go ahead with looking for food for now, and we can all think it over and feel out the situation. We'll suggest better security to Wiggins. Sleep on it, talk it over amongst ourselves and come to a decision. Agreed?"

John nodded. Sherlock let out an explosive sigh and turned back to the window.

"I'll take that as a yes," Greg said, and went over to where Sally was looking at some of her aunt's things.

"Population is the enemy, John. People are the enemy," Sherlock muttered at the window.

"You don't think people could help? Build a community, pool our resources, watch each other's backs, that kind of thing? Protection."

Sherlock shook his head. "Not while the infection is active. The Lost want to feed. You heard what Mary said. They scent a large group of people and they hound them. They're drawn to large population groups — more food for them, and and more people to spread the infection to. Isolation is safer."

Wanting to change the topic from the grim picture Sherlock was painting, John said, "Speaking of which, when you said Mary fancied me...?"

"You didn't notice?"

John shook his head.

"She was fascinated by you. I spotted the signs straight off." Sherlock smiled a little half smile. "But then, I am rather familiar with them."

*

Sally marked the outside wall of the house with a silhouette of a bird in flight and her aunt's name, using a can of spray paint she'd found inside with some art supplies. She stared at the simple memorial for a moment.

"I'm finished," she said, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders.

After that, they spent a frustrating day checking the shops for food. They had all already been broken into, so they only found a few things to bring back.

When they got back to the culvert about an hour before sunset and shouted into it, Angelo emerged from the dark depths to unlock the grate.

"Are the others back yet?" Greg asked, possibly as a lead-in to having a serious conversation about the issues Sherlock had brought up.

Angelo shrugged. "Wiggins is still out. Soo Lin got back just before you lot did. She's in a bad way, poor thing."

They reached the small chamber at the end, lit by a few torches, and they could see Soo Lin sitting on her bedroll with her arms around her knees and her face down, crying.

"She alright?" Philip asked in a whisper.

Angelo sat on his own bedroll with a grunt. "Had a rough time lately, she has. Lost her brother."

"Don't talk about her like she can't hear you!" Sally crouched by Soo Lin, patting her back and talking quietly to her. Soo Lin didn't say anything, but Sally stayed with her patiently.

The rest of them sat down as well. "We found little food today," Sherlock said, setting the nearly-empty blue duffle down. Earlier in the day, the five of them had agreed to split up the food and bottled drinks they'd brought with them in their own individual packs and not to share it with Wiggins and the others — not yet, anyway. They didn't know how serious Wiggins was about them providing food everyday to earn their keep, and it made them feel more secure to hold some hidden in reserve, just in case.

"Not much left to find," Angelo agreed.

There was a frantic clattering at the grate. John had his weapon in his hand and was on his feet before Angelo said, "Don't worry. None of them zombies have the combination for the lock."

Wiggins appeared a moment later, staring into the chamber. He was pale and shaking.

Sherlock, who hadn't even flinched at the racket Wiggins had made opening the gate, looked suddenly tense. His eyes widened. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Wiggins pointed. "What's she doing here? _Soo Lin got bit_."

"What?" Greg asked.

"She got bit. I saw her out there. Got swarmed. Bit on the neck."

Sally stood up slowly and stepped a few paces back. "Soo Lin?"

"Is that true?" Philip asked, trying to pull Sally further back into the corner. Soo Lin's long, thick hair was hiding her neck.

"I haven't — haven't turned yet," Soo Lin said into her knees. "You're still safe. I just wanted to say goodbye... to have a few more hours to... live as a human being."

"Bloody—" Angelo was on his feet now like the rest of them, moving away.

"I told you something like this would happen," Sherlock muttered to John. Then to Angelo, "Did you even check her back before letting her in? No, of course you didn't. You didn't check us either."

"She was acting normal!" Angelo cried. "Except for the crying — but she's been doing a fair amount of that lately! Anyway checking backs isn't foolproof — it doesn't even show up for a while"

"No, but it's the best method we have right now," Greg snapped. "And if you had checked, you might have seen the bite marks!"

"Actually, if you'd've been with us, you would've seen it happen, like I did," Wiggins said, with the most emotion John had seen from him yet. "But you _weren't_. You took off. Where were you all day?"

"Did some scavenging on my own. Came back early. That's all," Angelo told them. "That a crime now?!"

"But why'd you leave us?" Wiggins demanded.

"Angelo didn't leave out of some disregard for your safety, but because he's been busy with _other_ activities all day," Sherlock said, stepping over to Angelo's bedroll. Despite his cry of protest, Sherlock dug into it and came out with a handful of jewelry. "From the residences around here."

"Oh for pity's sake," Sally grumbled. "What do you even think you're going to do with all of that?"

"I'm just thinking of the big picture. Staying optimistic — for when this is all over," Angelo said, taking his stolen goods back from Sherlock. "And look — even if I did, what's it got to do with her? Sorry, sweetheart, but not my fault it happened. You don't think I could've stopped if, if I'd been there? Wiggins said it was a whole swarm of them."

"It's not Angelo's fault. Please don't hold it against him. I'll leave right now, before there is any possible danger to any of you." Soo Lin got up and started to gather up her possessions, but stopped with a confused look, as if realizing for the first time that she would never have a use for any of them again.

"See, no harm done —" Angelo said, holding up his hands, placatingly.

Sally snorted. "No, _no harm done_. How dare you say that in front of her."

"I mean, she's not infecting any of us!" Angelo cried.

"We can't just let her leave," Sherlock said. "She's going to turn. She's going to spread the infection further."

Sally made an incredulous sound, and Philip asked, "Just what exactly are you suggesting?!" in a squeaky voice.

"Soo Lin, you said you wanted to live the last hours of your life as a human, didn't you?" Sherlock asked.

Soo Lin nodded warily.

"Wouldn't you prefer to die as a human as well?" Sherlock asked.

Greg's mouth dropped open. "Sherlock, what are you saying?!"

"My God," Wiggins said, twisting the hem of his ratty jumper.

"No. Please." Soo Lin, eyes wide, inched toward the tunnel. "Just let me out. I'll — I'll figure out some way to keep myself from — before it's too late, I'll..."

"Suicide won't stop it," Sherlock said. "We can do it now, and do it properly."

John muttered, "Sherlock," and threw his arm across Sherlock's chest, as if physically restraining him would stop him from saying any more. Or stop him from _thinking_ that way.

The others all started talking — shouting — at once, arguing against what Sherlock was saying. The sound echoed and was amplified by the walls.

"What? You'll all being irrational," Sherlock said. John only heard him over the din because his ear was about four inches away at the moment, as John used his own weight to crowd Sherlock against the wall and away from the rest of them. But he was conflicted. What Sherlock was saying made sense, in a twisted kind of way. What if Soo Lin killed someone after she turned? What if she killed a _lot_ of people?

"Let her out. Now." Greg's voice carried over the others, and the group of them went into the tunnel ushering Soo Lin along in their midst. Only Angelo remained behind, sitting down heavily on his bedroll, running his shaking hands over his head.

"John, this is wrong," Sherlock protested. "I'm not advocating we murder a healthy woman. She's going to die in a matter of hours anyway. I'm saying we prevent her from hurting anyone else. Isn't that what we all want to do? Protect people from getting infected."

"I know, Sherlock, I understand, I do." The press of John's body against Sherlock's was no longer about restraining him or creating a barrier between him and the others. Sherlock wasn't struggling anymore. But John wasn't quite ready to step away. "It's just — it's such a hard thing, so gruesome — they just can't face it. They'd rather hope she doesn't hurt anyone than kill her while she's human."

"And perhaps this is the reason why this infection got so out of hand in the first place. Sentiment."

"Come on." John tugged Sherlock down until they were both seated, John still close enough that their shoulders rubbed together. The gate slammed and the others returned. They shot Sherlock wary, angry glances when they came back — all except for Greg, who sat down cross-legged facing Sherlock.

"Sherlock, mate, I get what you were saying, and it makes sense. But _that's not an option_ , understand?" Greg said, slowly and clearly.

"Why not?"

"Christ!" Greg covered his face with his hands for a moment, then ran his fingers through his hair. "Because we're _human_. We operate on more than just logic. Right? I know you're going to say that makes us stupid or flawed or whatever, but we can't just throw that out right now. We need our humanity more than ever."

"It's more humane to shove her outside and leave her to face it alone?" Sherlock stared Greg down.

"That's what she asked for!"

"And if she'd asked us to kill her?" Sherlock challenged.

"Then that would be different — but she didn't!"

"So the Infected person gets to decide their own fate? Oh, brilliant plan."

"Sherlock. This is a shitty situation with no easy answers. Stop arguing and picking this apart. Trust us when we're telling you that we can't do things a certain way. At the very least, you trust my opinion and John's, don't you?"

The two stared at each other in silence for a moment. Then Sherlock nodded. "Very well. But you know what we need to do now, don't you?" Sherlock asked.

Greg sighed and got up. "Alright, everyone, this is lousy timing and you're not going to like this, but it's necessary. We're going to use those torches to check each other for any bites or discoloration — and we're checking very thoroughly. Everybody — strip down to your underwear, please," Greg ordered, his voice authoritative enough to cut short any arguments, even as groans went up around the room. "And from here on out, we're doing this every time any of us return, got it?"

Nearly-naked Angelo was definitely something John didn't want to see. Sally grumbled about being the only girl being examined by a roomful of guys (but she stripped down openly and looked at them defiantly as they checked her skin). Undressing in front of everyone was definitely uncomfortable. But they were all clean, and it was a minor relief, even as John felt the aching sadness and disbelief that they'd just lost one of their small group already.

Everyone got quiet afterwards. They shut off all but one torch to conserve batteries and unrolled their bedding. They ate a little, although no one had much of an appetite. Wiggins was too upset to check how much food they'd found.

"We should go to sleep. Get an early start," Sherlock reminded them, pointedly. They hadn't gotten a chance to discuss if they were leaving or staying the next day, but after what had just happened, John was pretty sure they were all on the same page now.

After the last torch was turned off, John thought he heard someone going through Soo Lin's bag. Probably Angelo, whose bedroll was next to hers. Maybe he was being practical, looking for things to help keep them alive — and she certainly wouldn't need them anymore. Or maybe he was just greedy and didn't care about what had happened to her. John wondered if that was what people saw when they looked at Sherlock.

*

During the night, something wailed and cried and flung itself against the grate for hours.

John stared wide-eyed into the darkness and bit his lower lip. He could tell by how quiet they all were that everyone was awake, and they were all simply refusing to acknowledge what was happening.

*

In the morning, Sherlock's wristwatch beeped. John awoke, shocked that he had slept at all. Wiggins muttered in his sleep, but didn't fully wake up. The five uni students got up, exhaustion and stiffness making them move like they were in pain, and packed up all of their things.

"Won't we need one of them to let us out?" John whispered.

"No. Follow me." Sherlock limited the light from the torch with his hand so it wouldn't wake Wiggins or Angelo.

They followed the tunnel to the grate. John was apprehensive about what they might find waiting for them outside. The muddy earth was trampled and kicked up, but as far as they could see, there were no Infected around. But limited visibility was another problem with staying in the culvert — something could be lurking just to the side of the grate, out of sight.

"You didn't really think I'd take the chance of us getting locked in there, did you?" Sherlock asked, pulling the chain with the lock inside and turning the dial. "I learned the combination when I watched Wiggins open it the first time. Keep your weapons ready."

They slipped outside and scanned the area for a threat, but it was clear. On the outside of the grate they found blood, bits of skin, and a few long black hairs.

"Poor girl," Greg said, closing the lock so Wiggins and Angelo would be safe inside as they continued to sleep.

"I think Sherlock's right about leaving this group," Philip said. "I'm assuming that's what we're doing?"

"If it's what we all agree on?" Greg looked at each of them, and they all nodded. "And, look, if we don't find another place to stay by midday, we just turn around and come back for another night and then set out in a different direction the next day, yeah?"

"It doesn't feel right. Us just vanishing like this. Shouldn't we leave a note or something?" John said. "Or... should we have offered to let them come with us?"

"That thief in there can just bugger right off," Sally grumbled, looking at her aunt's house. Angelo had been in there — John was sure of it.

"I bartered with Wiggins to let us stay there. We don't owe them anything," Sherlock said.

And so they set off, continuing to head away from the university. The sky was cloudy — John didn't know how the Infected would react to the diffused daylight. They hadn't been walking long — they were still in an area of the town with commercial buildings, walking by a line of manicured bushes — when a voice called out to them, making them all jump.

"Hello. Are you — are you zombies?" The little, quavery voice asked.

"No, we're not. Are you alright?" Greg asked, stopping. A boy and a girl crept out of the bushes with tear tracks down their smudged faces.

"Are your parents around?" Sally asked.

"No." The girl took a shuddery breath and made a visible effort not to cry. "We can't find them."

Sherlock gripped John's wrist and inched away from the group.

"Sherlock?" John looked at him.

"Don't hesitate just because they're children, John — if they turn out to be infected."

John whipped his head back, shocked. They looked healthy, just dirty and scared, although appearances that could be deceptive, especially in those who had been recently infected.

"You think they're —?" John whispered.

"Possibly. We saw them with their parents from Sally's aunt's house yesterday, remember? But where are the parents now? Did they look like the kind of people who would abandon their children during a crisis?"

John remembered them now, and shuddered as his mind suggested possible scenarios that could fill in the blanks between then and now.

"Well, let's see if we can figure out what happened." Greg knelt down to talk to the kids.

"Greg, we should really —" Sherlock began.

"Shut it," Sally snapped.

"Look, just give us a minute here," Greg said, and turned back to the children. "Now, where did you last see your parents?"

The girl pointed vaguely up the street.

Sherlock moved several paces away, frantically scanning the entire area around them, and John followed. To his surprise, Philip came along too.

"I feel sorry for the kids, but we don't have time for this. We can't take care of them. We can barely take care of ourselves." Philip crossed his arms.

"Mummy and Daddy said we were hiding. Like spies," the boy told Greg.

"There was — sort of a basement and we slept there, only it was so smelly we wanted to go home," the girl said. "We got so hungry... we went out yesterday to look for something to eat, but there were all these — all these _people_ when it got dark, so — so we hid."

"Did any of those — those scary people hurt you?"

"No."

"And your mum and dad? Did they get hurt? Did you see what happened to them?" Sally asked, gently.

The girl shook her head indecisively.

"Do you remember where the basement was? Maybe they're there waiting for you?" Sally suggested.

The girl pointed to a stairway going leading down to a basement level on one of the buildings a short distance away. "It's right here, but we tried to get in and we couldn't open it."

"Well, let's see if we can get it open," Sally said.

As Sally reached the bottom of the stairs, the door opened slightly, and someone peeked around it.

"Hello?" Greg called. "It's alright."

"Mummy?" The kids dashed forward. Sally, seeming to sense that something was wrong, tried to stop them.

"No," Sherlock gasped, and then he shouted it, "No!"

At that moment, the door banged open as a mass of people flooded out. No — _not people_. Not anymore.

The mob overtook Sally and the kids before they could even cry out.

"Sally!" Greg shouted. John raced toward them automatically. Philip, with his longer legs, pulled ahead of John.

The steps slowed the the Infected down, but not much. They got up them better than John would have thought they could. Greg, near the top of the steps, raised his weapon and rocked on the balls of his feet for an instant, apparently torn between pushing forward in an attempt to reach Sally and the kids, and letting the group come to him, where he had the advantage of having higher ground. But the decision was made for him, as they swarmed to the top of the stairs in seconds. He knocked the first few down with swings of the heavy shovel, and their weight tumbling down the stairs took out others.

John's heart was pounding as he ran toward Greg, unsure of what his plan was going to be when he got there. Fight side-by-side with Greg? Haul his ass out of there and run? Try to get Sally and the kids out unharmed? There was little chance of that last possibility at this point. The mob around them was so thick, he couldn't even see them.

"John! John!" Sherlock shouted.

John stopped and spun around and saw Sherlock where he had left him — not running to help Greg as John had assumed. More Infected were emerging from the dark gaps between buildings, drawn toward the free-for-all on the stairs. A few were near Sherlock.

Sherlock staggered a few steps, hunched over. He was clutching his thigh, where his jeans were a ragged, dark-stained mess. And his hands — his hands were red with blood. One more step and Sherlock's leg buckled. His spear clattered to the ground.

 _Shit!_ John shouldn't have left Sherlock! What the hell had happened? All that blood — the Infected would catch the scent of it and — oh God, he had to get Sherlock away from here!

Just then, Greg screamed — a sound of stark horror that John would normally never associate with his friend. It reached deep into John's mind, awakened primal responses — to fight. To protect. To rip the things apart that were causing all of this, so that John would never have to hear a scream like that one again.

And there was John, caught halfway between two friends who needed him.

And it would take a miracle for him to reach even _one_ of them in time.


	8. Chapter 8

Sherlock.

 _Sherlock_.

John made his choice in an instant — and yet, it _wasn't_ a choice.

And so he sprinted for Sherlock, praying that his injury wasn't serious, that somehow — _somehow_ — the Infected wouldn't catch the scent of his blood. John grasped his crude weapon, the clothes pole, and _dared_ any Infected to get within range of it.

John had always been calm during an emergency — maybe too calm. Others had noticed and commented on it before, even finding him cold, but the truth was that the emotion just didn't catch up with him until after the danger had passed.

He chanced a quick look back over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Greg struggling against the mob, as if in slow motion, then he lost his balance and was pulled under the mass of the Infected, like being swept off one's feet by the ocean. Or like John's image of himself — long ago as a teen — falling in front of the train in the tube station. Philip, still swinging his weapon, was swallowed up an instant later.

John couldn't think about them right now. Not if he wanted to survive.

But even as John tried to close the distance between them, Sherlock got to his feet, picked up his weapon in one shaking hand, and started limping away toward an alley, leaving red drops behind him. One of the Infected, making a beeline for the rest of the mob and their victims, made a halfhearted grab for Sherlock, who struck back at it with his weapon and twisted away. John went cold and tried to push himself to run even faster. But the two just reeled away from each other drunkenly and kept going in opposite directions.

Sherlock was one hell of a lucky bastard. Either that, or even the Infected could tell what a pain in the arse Sherlock could be and decided he wasn't worth dealing with. _Dark humor._ Another way to stay calm in an emergency.

Sherlock reached a wall and hunched against it, one bloody hand pressing at the wound on his thigh, face in a grimace. John reached him a moment later and — God, just touching Sherlock was a relief, the feel of his warm, living body reassuring in a way nothing else could have been. John hauled him up, shoving his own shoulder under Sherlock's armpit.

"Sherlock," John gasped, "are you —?"

"Yes. John, we have to climb." Sherlock's voice was shakier than John had ever heard it.

"What?"

"Climb!" Sherlock pointed to a fire escape on the side of the building.

If they could just get to that ladder... The Infected might be passing them over for the — _oh God_ — _for the larger feast_ at the moment, but they'd soon finish with it and come after the scent of Sherlock's blood. Hobbling together, they closed the distance toward it. Sherlock's bad leg gave out once, and he grunted and nearly fell, but John held him up.

The bottom rung of the ladder looked so far above them, but John somehow boosted Sherlock up who was able to grab it and pull it down.

"Can you climb?" John asked. He really didn't know what he would do if Sherlock couldn't. All he knew was that they were going up the fucking ladder one way or another. But adrenaline seemed to be doing wonders for Sherlock. He scrambled up surprisingly quickly, even holding his weapon in one hand, and John followed.

Panting heavily, Sherlock collapsed onto the roof. John climbed over him to quickly scout out the roof for danger. It was deserted and unremarkable, featureless except for a small structure at the center with a door that was obviously at the top of an internal stairway. John checked it — it was locked.

As he circled the roof, John couldn't help looking back down to the spot up the street where they'd left Greg and the others. All he could see was a mass of the Infected — squirming and moving and chaotic.

Movement but not _life_. Surely no one could have survived...

If they were all dead, John thought, feeling strangely calm and frantic at the same time, then that just left Sherlock, and he was injured and needed help. John went back to Sherlock and knelt by him, feeling numb. He couldn't see the wound under the shredded fabric, so he got his fingers into the red-stained slash in the denim and ripped it open to check how bad the damage was.

Sherlock watched him calmly. The skin of Sherlock's thigh had blotches of red on it, but John couldn't find any injury. John widened the tear in Sherlock's jeans further.

"John," Sherlock said in a voice that was both gentle and arresting.

"Where did you get hurt, Sherlock?" John asked. If the injury wasn't there, then the blood must have run down from further up. John eyes raked over Sherlock's torso.

"I'm not."

"Then what is this? Did — oh God, did one of the Infected bleed onto you?" John demanded. Contact with that could be even more dangerous than an open wound.

"I'm not injured, John," Sherlock said calmly, but didn't stop John's hands which were still checking him for the wound. "Observe, will you? Does that look like blood, really, when you're this close to it? Does it smell like blood?"

The blood — John raised his own red-stained fingers, and now that he actually looked at it, he could see it was all wrong — it was thin, and it wasn't clotting at all. And the smell was familiar, it was —

"It's juice. Cranberry juice. One of the bottles from the vending machine back at uni," Sherlock said. He was watching John's face with a curious intensity. John, who had been checking Sherlock's body obsessively for an injury, looked into his face for the first time. "Remember the morning we bought them? After we got coffee?"

"How did it — What? Wait, explain this, Sherlock. I know you're injured. You fell — your leg — and I held you up."

Sherlock closed his eyes for longer than a blink. "When we were attacked, I knew you would rush in to try to save Greg and the others. In fact I've known for days now, ever since this thing began, that you were going to get yourself infected or _killed_ trying to save people who were beyond help."

"Sherlock —"

"I knew I wouldn't be able to stop you. Therefore, what I needed to do was get you to run _away_ from the danger. The only way to do that — the only scenario I could come up with — was to make you believe that _I_ was injured and in danger, so I could lead you away."

"Sherlock —"

"Because you would try to help me, and I could bring you away to a safe place. Which I just did. I saved both our lives."

John's breathing was way too fast, he noticed dimly. It was probably a bad thing, but right now he didn't care. "How do you know I would have gotten myself killed —"

"You saw how quickly the Lost overran Sally and the others back there?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes, but — Why would I rush into that? How do you —"

"John, I know you. You would have. Given a few seconds more, you would have."

John stared stupidly at Sherlock. His mind was still reeling from the fact that Greg and Sally and everyone he'd just been talking to a few minutes ago were now dead and being feasted on by that mob of Infected down there. Trying to fit together the pieces of what Sherlock was telling him on top of that was making him feel like the world was spinning and tilting and about to crash spectacularly.

"You were running to save Greg, weren't you, John?" Sherlock asked, in far too patient a tone. "If I hadn't called out to you, if you hadn't seen me _on the ground bleeding_ , wouldn't you have—?"

John smacked his hands down onto the roof. "You faked this. You fucking faked this, you had it all planned out, and you let them _fucking die_ while you faked this —"

"I didn't _let_ anyone die! I _saved your life_!" Sherlock raised his voice. Finally. "They were already gone. They were beyond help."

"You think I'm so stupid that you have to—! You think I need—! Like I'm a child—!" John leapt to his feet, wild with rage and grief. How dare Sherlock manipulate him like this? If he'd thought John was in danger, why not just talk to him like an adult?

But deep down, John knew Sherlock was right. John would have run in to save Greg. That's exactly what he'd been about to do. Sherlock had already tried to warn him, several times over the last few days, that he would get in over his head trying to save people. And John hadn't taken it seriously.

It was the fact that Sherlock was both completely right about how John would react, and the fact that Sherlock's solution to the whole situation had been such a fucked up deception that got to John. And Sally had warned him that Sherlock only cared about John in a selfish, manipulative way...

John's muscles coiled, they sang out for movement and explosive release. And he was on Sherlock, his knee banging against the roof painfully, shoving Sherlock down. Before even realizing what he was doing, his fist snapped forward and hit Sherlock in the face.

Sherlock — despite all his martial arts classes — didn't defend himself. Watching Sherlock passively taking the punch snapped enough sense back into John that he got his feet under him and staggered back a few paces, staring at Sherlock and the red gash on his cheekbone.

Sherlock touched his cheek as if the pain were a completely foreign sensation. "I don't think you're stupid — I think you're human, and I want to keep you that way. I'd choose to save you _every time_ by any means necessary, no matter how much you hate me afterwards, I would always choose to save you." Clumsily, Sherlock sat up, folding his long legs in Greg's ruined jeans under himself. "The truth is, John, I do understand the impulse to risk one's life in the attempt to save another's. If that mob _had_ attacked you, I would almost certainly have lost my head completely and rushed in to try to save you, getting myself killed or infected in the process."

John had to get away. He left Sherlock there and collapsed in front of the door to the inside stairwell. He slipped his rucksack off and sat with his back against the door and curled forward on himself.

Greg and Philip... Sally and those poor lost kids... Soo Lin... and by now, Clara and Harry. What about his parents, what about Mike, or Mary, or anyone else who had tried to get away? He was in shock with grief, numb and curiously unable to tell if his body felt hot or cold. It hurt too much and was too fresh to even let him cry, so he just sat there and sat and sat.

His fist hurt. He'd hit Sherlock, and he didn't know if he was ashamed or glad of it.

Sherlock had saved his life, but Sherlock had deceived him to do it.

And now Sherlock was the only other member of their group left left... confusing, complicated Sherlock.

John lay down on his side, his back still to the door. A draft sometimes blew out from under it. He was vaguely aware of time progressing.

John hadn't considered the possibility of the others dying, not really. He'd worried about Sherlock instead. But now that it had happened, John ached to have Greg back, being the leader and making decisions for them. And the others — John had felt safe in a group. He'd maintained some illusion of normalcy with the group with him. When all those terrible things had happened and they'd witnessed them all, he'd had other people there going through it with him. It had been like some mad road trip, a bunch of students slipping away from school on an insane lark, rather than what it was — a desperate, and probably futile run for their lives.

Denial gripped him for a few dizzying breaths. Maybe they weren't dead. Had John seen it happen? Had he seen their bodies? No! Anything could have happened after they vanished from John's sight. He itched to go down to the street level to look for them. The others might be fine. They'd probably taken the kids back to their parents. Maybe they were ready to get back to their long hike, wondering where John and Sherlock had gotten to.

He knew better, though, he really did. He'd heard the screams. The... sounds.

They had either been infected and were currently suffering through their Hell Hours, or were dead with with their choice organs removed and eaten, so much flesh stripped away that they'd never rise.

John wanted to go check. He wanted desperately to somehow be able to save them. Sherlock was right about that, the bastard. And on some level he knew he was a hypocrite, because Sherlock's survival _was_ more important to him than Greg and the others'. Sherlock may have done the deceiving, but it had been John who had turned his back on the group of them to make sure Sherlock was safe. Sherlock had understand and exploited that aspect of John's mind, but he hadn't created it. John would rush into danger for the others as long as Sherlock was safe, but when given the choice he would prioritize Sherlock. Always. He had let them die to save Sherlock just as much as Sherlock had let them die to save John. Sherlock's life was worth more to John than the lives of several other people, John thought. And it shouldn't be like that — the value of people's lives didn't work like that, some didn't have more worth than others. A human life was a human life. What did that say about John, that the lives of his friends had different values, like exchanging currency — how many euros could he get for 5 pounds?

But then, in some situations, people _did_ prioritize the lives of certain people and no one thought less of them for it. Their spouses and relatives... girlfriends, boyfriends, partners. Certainly, if he had some kind of important relationship with Sherlock, then he was justified in saving Sherlock at the expense of other lives. But what _was_ Sherlock to him? Best friend? Best friend who sometimes made out on a couch while slightly drunk? Was Best-Friend-Sherlock worth the lives of 1.5 friends, while Boyfriend-Sherlock was worth 3.25? Did this mean, John wondered frantically, if he decided Sherlock was his boyfriend, if he _loved_ Sherlock, did that make his actions back there ok? Less selfish? Would it make him a good person?

Oh God, fuck all of this. What did it even matter? All that mattered was survival, and with just the two of them it was going to be even harder.

Wait. Was Sherlock still here? He'd just assumed Sherlock had stayed where he was, but what if he had left —

John raised his head slightly. Sherlock was still sitting at the top of the ladder, gazing out pensively — not down where the bloodbath had taken place, but out at the horizon.

He didn't turn around. But that was fine. John wasn't ready to speak.


	9. Chapter 9

They stayed on the roof for the rest of the day and through the night. There were skitterings and uneven footsteps and the sound of heavy things dragging over pavement down below that never let up.

John had the presence of mind to force himself to eat one of the granola bars he'd had in his rucksack (it felt flavorless and dry, like trying to swallow gravel) and to get out his blanket and try to make himself less uncomfortable when it got dark and cold. Normally he'd have checked on Sherlock and made him do the same things for himself as well, but he didn't.

John got to his feet a few times when his body demanded it. Although he would have liked to walk around the roof to stretch his legs, he stayed in place instead, and when he had to pee (and peeing over the side of a building when it was too dark to see what was below was surreal) he went to the far side of the building — away from Sherlock, away from the street where everything had happened.

When John slept, he slept poorly. He jerked awake multiple times from dreams where the sounds of movement were actually from things scuttling up the sides of the building, or the stairwell behind the door he was sitting against, where the Infected were preparing to surge onto the roof in a mob that would swallow John and Sherlock. He woke another time to a dream of being back at uni, back in his dorm room with Mike, trying to sleep but frustrated by the sounds of the other students coming and going from their rooms and running up and down the halls all night. It had been a relief to wake up from the other nightmares... but it hurt to wake up from that one.

Every time John woke, it was to the smell of Sherlock smoking. When he looked through the pitch-black (nighttime without electricity was much darker than any John had experienced before), he could sometimes see the glowing tip of the cigarette, brightest when Sherlock inhaled, proof that Sherlock was alive and not one of those breathless, undead, mockeries of human life.

But even so, John's exhausted mind worried about Sherlock — that it was a trick, that it wasn't Sherlock sitting there smoking. That Sherlock had deserted him, or had become infected, and had somehow created this illusion of himself. If John went over and touched his shoulder, would Sherlock's body crumble, dry and brittle? Would it in fact be an Infected wearing Sherlock's skin, which would then snap its head around and sink its teeth into John's flesh?

Eventually John settled into a light sleep. When he opened his eyes next, the sky was grey, and Sherlock was standing at the very edge of the roof looking down. It was like an image from his nightmares. With difficulty, he squashed that thought, along with the impulse to rush over and pull Sherlock away from the edge.

Mute and feeling as if he were moving on auto-pilot, John packed his rucksack and took stock of their weapons and supplies. Sherlock's pack was on the roof near the top of the fire escape ladder, and John had his own, but the duffle was gone. Philip had been carrying it. All the food and bottled drinks they had left were what they each had in their own bags. The days they'd spent in this town with its emptied-out shops had depleted what they'd had. Any temptation John had to go back to the culvert with Wiggins and Angelo — and he had thought about it during the night — was quelled by the fact that they had to move on to find food. As for the weapons, they'd lost the gardening tools Sally and Philip had been carrying as well as the blade from the shears that Greg had been using as a sword.

With a morbid curiosity, John crept over and looked down at the street. There weren't any Infected in sight — the morning was bright, if overcast — and there weren't any bodies... exactly. Not _whole_ , anyway, or even in recognizable parts. Just tatters of what might have been bloody clothes or flesh all over the street, mixed in with general, unidentifiable rubbish. The black birds that were perched around on power lines and rooftops cawed at each other, close then far, left then right, as if questioning and answering one another in their own language.

Sherlock put on his rucksack. There was a litter of cigarette butts around his feet. So, the smoking had been real and not part of his dreams, even though Sherlock had been carefully rationing his cigarettes to only two or three a day since even before leaving uni. Sherlock caught John looking at them — their eyes met briefly. Eager to escape Sherlock's gaze, John turned to the ladder and climbed down. There was so much in Sherlock's face that John couldn't stand seeing at the moment — the bruise and red mark from John's punch, the painful-looking sunburn he'd got from sitting on the roof in the sun for all of the previous day without John reminding him to use sunscreen. And there were also things John didn't want Sherlock to see in John's face — the residual anger and blame and confusion, the swollen, blood-shot eyes that John knew he must have, but that Sherlock — conspicuously — _didn't_.

Whatever all of that meant, John couldn't process it just then. But he could walk — he could continue their long journey toward whatever safe haven they may or may not one day find. They probably wouldn't, he thought pessimistically. But walking was better than sitting here. Compared to most other options, walking was easy.

They turned away from the mess on the pavement. To John's relief, Sherlock didn't go back to look through the rags and debris on the street for clues about their friends' fates.

*

As they walked through the day, out of the town and continuing to head away from uni, they occasionally saw other people on foot — usually in small groups of two or three — always going the same direction they were. Small side roads intersected with the main road they were on, like streams joining a river flowing to the sea — and the current only flowed one way. There was something different about these people than than the ones they'd seen shortly after leaving uni. These were the ones who had seen the horrors and had close calls and fought for their lives and had survived. It wasn't just that the weak had fallen first, but also that those who survived had gotten tougher. They carried their own makeshift weapons and lightweight packs, having discarded all but the essentials. They walked silently and their eyes were drawn to any shadows deep enough to hide something the size of a person.

John supposed he and Sherlock had changed just as much. Back at uni, despite wearing Greg's well-loved jeans and tee shirts, Sherlock had always been fairly neat. John had never seen him looking so unkempt, not even during all-nighters or crawling around outdoors for any of his odd experiments. And he had no idea what he himself even looked like now.

Whenever they came upon other people, there were always wary looks exchanged, weapons gripped a little tighter, keen eyes looking for any telltale signs of infection. But they all seemed to recognize each other as kindred spirits, showing the battle scars and exhausted, world-weary expressions, even as they kept a wide berth.

John noticed all of this through a haze of indifference. He felt as if his grief, shock, and confusion were draped over him like a heavy, smothering blanket, muting sounds and dimming his vision, draining his energy, and putting a barrier between himself and everything else — including Sherlock.

He didn't want to be upset with Sherlock anymore, not really, but doing anything about it felt like more effort than he could manage. He wasn't even really actively angry or hurt anymore — just weary. Trying to understand or forgive Sherlock or talk things out would take more thought and emotion than he could muster.

By late afternoon, they had only exchanged the most basic of communications necessary to walk together and stop for occasional breaks. The sinking sun was starting to paint the sky in brilliant reds and oranges. It would have been breathtaking if it didn't mean that darkness — and thus danger — was to follow. If only night didn't bring Them out. Time had become an enemy. As they walked, they'd been watching, but hadn't found any suitable shelter, and John had almost resigned himself to another uncomfortable night up a tree — although, in a dark, removed way, he didn't really care very much.

"There." Sherlock pointed to a ramshackle barn in a field, visible from the road. The walls were clearly too rickety to keep the Infected out, but if it had a hayloft with a ladder, that wouldn't be a bad place to pass the night.

As Sherlock tested the door to see if it would open — _the street the stairs the children rushing forward Sally trying to hold them back the face peeking around the door the mass of bodies that rushed out scrambling over each other in their eagerness —_

"Well, hello," a female voice called out from inside, making them both start badly. "You'll forgive me if I haven't put the kettle on."

A dark-haired girl, who was maybe a year or two younger than they were and very pretty, was peering down at them from the hayloft, as casually as if it were a sofa in her own home and Sherlock and John were lifelong friends dropping by.

It was so uncanny seeing her when he'd been half-expecting a mob of the Infected that John swung his weapon around at the ready. He felt like an idiot a moment later at the look she gave him — like he was so _cute_ playing with his _toy_... which was, admittedly, very obviously a clothes pole and not very impressive as far as weapons went.

"Oh, don't be melodramatic. I'm not one of them. Could I have climbed up here if I were?" she asked, arching an eyebrow and smiling.

"You not only climbed up, you also pulled the ladder up after you. Clever," Sherlock said, looking up at the hayloft. "And, if we were to ask you to lower it for us?"

"I'd need to see your backs, first. Here, I'll even show you mine first." She unbuttoned her long coat to reveal a low-cut sequined dress. It was so shockingly out of place that John gaped at her — what, had she decided to flee from the Infected during a _fancy dress party?_ — but that was nothing to what she did next. She turned her back and watched them over her shoulder — with a pose and expression that would have suited a pinup to perfection — and slid the dress down to her waist, revealing both that she was wearing nothing under it and that her back was clear of any marks.

She held the pose for several breaths longer than necessary. "Well?" she pulled the dress back up into place and put the coat back on.

John, frankly, didn't know what the hell to say or think to that. Even if there had been a mark on her back — which there hadn't — he wasn't even sure he'd have noticed it properly.

They showed her their own backs in return. In turn, she dragged the heavy ladder back over and slid it down. They climbed up into the hayloft and heaved the ladder back up after them. John sat down and took off his rucksack, glad for the rest, but feeling distinctly uncomfortable. They introduced themselves, and she told them her name was Irene.

"You've been through some trouble, haven't you?" she asked, almost playfully hugging her knees where she sat. She stretched out a hand to Sherlock's face and came within millimeters of stroking his skin and the mark John's punch had left. "Oh dear, that stunning face." Her eyes traveled over John's knuckles, as if reading the whole scenario — the kind of thing Sherlock normally did.

"Remind me to put some sunscreen on you in the morning," she added, gesturing toward her small bag. "Speaking of which, you're welcome to sleep here tonight. I'll be back on the road first thing in the morning, and you can come or not," she told them. "There's a government-run shelter in the next town that still has room in it."

"What, seriously?" John asked, raising his eyebrows. He'd given up hope of finding anything of the sort. In fact, he'd kind of imagined that the government had entirely stopped functioning by now.

"That's what everyone out there has been saying." Irene nodded her head toward the road. "Oh dear, don't tell me you didn't actually speak to anyone you saw out there today? Were you so afraid of being infected that you couldn't even exchange a few words with them? Information is vital for survival a situation like this, you know."

Her tone annoyed John, but to his further surprise Sherlock and Irene struck up a spirited conversation about their recent experiences with the infection breaking out. There was no room for John to take part in it — when he tried, they either talked over him or looked at him oddly until he finished. So he was pushed into a listening role. John noticed that Sherlock's information was a little vague and evasive — he definitely avoided talking about Greg and the others and some of their specific experiences, but he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say, and asked her lots of questions.

It grew dark — that was one of the maddening things about living on the road without electricity — when it got dark, it got dark. The light from torches and mobile phones consumed batteries, so they had be saved for when they were really needed. But Sherlock and Irene weren't put off by the fading light, and more and more John felt like a third wheel. Any possibility of Sherlock and John being able to hash out some of the tension between them was now gone. John pretended not to care and spread out his bedroll and decided he would just go to sleep. The news of a shelter — one with food and water — that they would be able to reach the next day was very good news. He tried to focus on that.

After a very long time, he managed to doze. When he woke later, Sherlock and Irene were still talking. John hadn't heard Sherlock talk that much in weeks. He didn't even really sound like himself. John remembered what Greg had said — that all Sherlock needed was for people to give him a chance — to stick around and endure his rougher edges long enough to get to know him. Being around Greg and John had undoubtedly begun to smooth out those edges. And as for this girl — Irene — could Sherlock be interested in her? Was he attracted to women at all? What experience did he have with them, anyway? None, as far as John knew, but... for as much as John and Sherlock had been inseparable since they'd met, the truth was that John didn't know that much about his past.

*

In the morning, after a quick breakfast of one of the last of the packets of crisps, followed by Sherlock putting sunscreen on his own face, the three of them set out early together and continued up the road. Within about a half hour, they passed the remains of a campsite at the side of the road. Clearly, some of the other walkers they'd seen the day before had tried to spend the night there and had been attacked. There was a campfire with the embers still smoking, sleeping bags spread out, bags scattered around — and there were bloody remains, a shockingly big splash of red on the pavement, shredded clothes and blankets. Tatters of flesh and bone were scattered, even some thirty or forty feet up the road, with ravens pecking and tearing at them.

John held his breath as they passed, clutching his weapon. Part of him — a guilty little part — was proud of how clever they had been the night before finding the hayloft in the barn instead of stupidly trying to camp right out in plain sight. _Better them than us_ , he thought. But he also hated how he'd gone from wanting to save others and seeing all human life as something of value to just being glad that he and Sherlock had survived.

"Foolish of them, wasn't it? But still — better them than us," Irene said, mirroring John's thoughts.

He shook his head, but said nothing.

As they continued on the road, the number of other people walking increased. While the groups had mainly ignored each other before, they were still wary today, but shouted greetings and news. The buzz about the shelter came from everyone. _Just up the road. A shelter that still had room. Was accepting people. Had food and water and blankets. Civilization. Relief. And it was just a little further._

Walking had become automatic for John. He no longer thought about anything — he just walked, just followed Sherlock and thought about things. Irene confused him. Her flirting wasn't even subtle. She was so very, very open about her attraction to him — she looked at him and talked to him like he was the most desirable man on earth — and Sherlock had probably never been in that situation before. Where would it go? Sherlock clearly admired her, or at least her cleverness. The two of them spoke in ways Sherlock and John never did.

Wouldn't it be good for Sherlock — a relationship with a woman? For a while John had thought Sherlock was attracted to him — well of course, what else _could_ he have thought, with the way Sherlock acted toward him sometimes? But what had John been thinking? _John was straight_. He'd been attracted to women since before he even understood what the feeling was. And Sherlock had never specifically said that he himself was gay or bi or — he'd never directly said anything about his sexuality. He'd been starved for companionship when he'd come to uni, but he'd never had it before — he probably had just acted the way he had toward John because he'd never had a friend before. He'd been overly-friendly and weirdly affectionate because the idiot didn't know how to act toward a friend and had almost no social skills.

Alright then — when they got to the shelter, John would give them some space. Oh, he wouldn't desert Sherlock, but surely he could find some other people to befriend with and spend time with there. He'd step back and let things play out between Sherlock and Irene without his interference.

When Sherlock stopped at the side of the road, John and Irene stopped with him. They were on the outskirts of a town. A few people in an open patch of land by the road were holding signs that had information about the shelter. A woman on the opposite side had a blanket spread out with items _for sale or trade!_ as a sign proclaimed spread over it — pots and pans, dented tea kettles, toasting tongs, battered paperback books, hats and scarves that looked like they'd come from an old man's attic. It was the closest thing to civilization they'd seen for several days. John was already getting a sense of what the camaraderie and sense of community in the shelter might be like.

Sherlock turned to Irene, who was looking over the items for sale with a curious eye. "Goodbye."

"Ah — sorry?" she asked.

"Goodbye. Go on to the shelter," he told her, in an entirely different tone than he'd used with her before.

She glanced from Sherlock to John's (undoubtedly) surprised face. She recovered quickly, and seemed to decide to interpret his words as a challenge, or a bit of flirting. "Well, see you there in a bit, then. I'll save you a good spot, if someone else doesn't get to it first." She slid her fingers over the collar of his sweatshirt, tugging lightly on the drawstring of his hood.

"Not necessary. Because we're not going."

"Sherlock, are you —" John began.

"What on earth are you —"

"Go," Sherlock said, right to Irene's face.

She shrugged as if none of it had mattered and shook her head at him. "You were just convenient, you know. Nothing more." But John caught something like hurt in her eyes before she turned and continued up the road, with her hips — as John's practiced eye noticed — swinging a bit more than necessary. He found himself quite enjoying seeing the back of her — but not in the way she probably thought men did.

Sherlock scrutinized the items spread out on the blanket. The seller stared back at him, apparently entertained by the interaction.

"Sherlock —"

"Population is the enemy, John. Everyone is going that way, everyone is gathering in one place."

"But they have food, Sherlock — if you hadn't noticed, we've been running critically low."

"Yes, John, exactly — exactly!" Sherlock cried, as if John had just solved some difficult puzzle. "And just as you're drawn to the food there — so will any Lost in the area. More so, even, as their drive to eat seems to be more intense and pressing than our own."

"So if we're not going, then —?"

"That way." Sherlock pointed.

John turned around to a narrow road he'd nearly overlooked before, branching off from the main road and heading off toward — nothing. The land that way was rocky and dry. He almost expected to see a tumbleweed roll across it, like in an American western film.

Sherlock knelt down to look at the items for sale. He swung off his rucksack and begun to pull out some more of the odd paraphernalia he'd pilfered from the other dorm rooms. "What will you accept in exchange for these here, one of these hats and a scarf?"

They debated and haggled over the trade for a moment, before the woman finally said, "Tell you what — make it this hat instead and you've got a deal." The woman swapped out a knit cap for an old-fashioned one.

Sherlock agreed.

"You really mean to head that way?" she asked, pointing toward the road as they completed the trade. "Nothin' out that way, not for miles. Just an old road the lorry drivers use to bring deliveries to the shops around here."

"Yes. Excellent."

John groaned. "You can't be serious."

"I am." Sherlock picked up the hat and scarf. "They're perfectly good."

"No, not that. That!" John pointed at the road.

"Groups of people are what draw in the Lost, John. How many people have we seen on the road yesterday and today, all heading in the same direction? They may as well be ringing the dinner bell for the Lost. We need to go away from them. What about that kettle?" He pointed at a dented kettle on the blanket.

"But there's nothing out that way — look at it! Sherlock, death of dehydration or starvation, or death by zombies is still _dead either way_!"

"Trust me, John. Trust me."

John sighed and grumbled to himself, walked a few steps away while Sherlock finished whatever he was doing. Because, fuck it all... John _did_ trust Sherlock. He would follow where Sherlock led.

*

The lorry road was deserted, and looked like even in its normal existence didn't get much use. The road was only a single lane each way and the landscape was barren. There were occasional shacks and small houses along the road, along with the now-familiar abandoned and wrecked cars blocking the pavement, including a police car that Sherlock was fascinated by and crawled into to investigate, while John stood back clutching his weapon nervously.

In the afternoon, after a long day of walking with no sounds but their own footsteps and the wind, John finally brought up the topic he'd wanted to all day. "So... Irene?"

"Yes?"

"Just what exactly was going on back there?" John asked as they walked. "You were so friendly with her, but then you just sent her away."

"She was correct when she boasted about having information — I realized that and faked an interest in her. I learned what she knew about the infection, the habits of other survivors, the terrain around here. But in the process, I also learned that she had been through a number of traveling companions prior to us, John, and that they hadn't survived. I deduced that she collected and charmed people who could fight off the Lost should they attack. People who would fight for her out of some sentiment for her. She let them defend her, or else she slipped away quietly while her traveling companions unwittingly faced the Infected alone, believing they were protecting her."

"Oh. Is that why she was acting like that?" John felt relieved.

"Initially. I believe she felt some legitimate fascination toward me. She believed we were nearly to the shelter and thus safety, and was interested in pursuing something with me after we arrived to stave off boredom. She was highly bored by unintelligent people."

John snorted. "Lucky for me."

Sherlock ignored that comment. "She was brilliant in her own way. When the infection first broke out, it was fortuitous for her. She was about to get caught in some wrong-doing at her place of employment. She distracted attention from herself, however, by making others believe they were infected. All it took was a little suspicion on the right person and the others would gang up on them. She took out a few people who could have caught her that way."

"She told you that?"

"She didn't tell me that — she talked _around_ that. She told me everything but that — and I was able to fill in the gaps. She was brilliant, if unpracticed, at manipulating situations for her own survival."

"Yeah, no wonder you hit it off."

"John, my deception was to save your life. Hers were to sacrifice others for her own gain. Don't confuse the two. At any rate, had we gone to the shelter with her — which I never had any intention of doing, even had she not been there — she may have stirred up trouble of a similar sort there and attempted to manipulate us into protecting her."

John shook his head, both at her actions and at Sherlock learning all of that about someone in such a short period of time.

They kept walking down the deserted road. And just when it seemed like there would never be anything else to see other than pavement and rocky bluffs, they came upon something that would change _everything_.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 2012, I wrote a rough draft of what would eventually become this story. It was only about 10,000 words and no longer has much in common with this version - except for the events of this chapter, which have changed little aside from being greatly expanded. This was where the story originally began, with the events at the university being told in flashbacks. There are a few elements from that original draft that will appear in the next few chapters, but then they completely diverge and the ending is different.
> 
> I'll talk more about that original story, the strange way it came into being, and the changes between it and this version at the end of the fic when spoilers won't be an issue.

John saw something ahead on the road and began to run toward it without consciously making the decision to do so, as if his legs figured how important it was before his tired brain could work it through. A few seconds later, Sherlock — with his longer stride — raced past John, the tea kettle he'd insisted on trading for bumping against his rucksack as he ran.

There was a petrol station ahead. One with a _shop_. In his normal life — that is, his life before the Infection — John would hardly have looked twice at it. But now it meant _everything_ — safety, comfort, survival. Because — as far as John could tell — it was still pristine and intact. It _hadn't been looted_. 

Not for long though — Sherlock paused just long enough to pick up a large rock, and waited an impatient moment while John confirmed that the glass door was locked _("Of course it's locked, John!")_ before telling John to get out of the way and smashing the door.

Inside, everything was sitting neatly on shelves, just as it would be on any normal day. It was almost shocking how ordinary and orderly everything was after what they'd seen recently. It was like the first few disorienting seconds as you're leaving the cinema after an engrossing film, when you're squinting in the bright sun and are surprised to find that it's still daytime.

After a quick once-over to make sure that the place was truly clear, John grabbed two room-temperature sports drinks from the powerless case and passed one over to Sherlock. For a few minutes they just drank. John came up for air and let his stomach recover while he eased his pack off his sore shoulders.

The place was clearly geared for lorry drivers (most of the pumps outside had been diesel) looking for drinks, snacks, easy meals, and other sundries for the road. The perishables — packaged sandwiches and the like — had long since gone off. But the variety of simple foods on the shelves was far better than the trail mix and chocolate bars which John and Sherlock had been living off of. The food cravings that John had been trying to suppress overtook him at the sight. He opened a pop-top tin of tuna fish and would have eaten it with his fingers — gladly and without shame — but there happened to be a package of crackers within reach. He sat on the floor, scooping up the tuna on the crackers, and feeling like it was the best thing he could ever remember eating. He was only dimly aware of Sherlock walking around, looking through the shelves.

"John, look over here," Sherlock said. He had an open tin of soup in one hand. He indicated a door behind the counter while he took a sip of soup.

John got up with a grunt. Now that they had stopped to rest, the daze he'd fallen into while walking had lifted and he was feeling all of the soreness and pains in his body acutely. He left his pack but took his weapon out of habit.

Inside the door was a small stockroom and, off of it, a tiny bathroom. With the electricity out (just like it had been everywhere else), the rooms were dark, and they had to rely on their torches and the light from the open door to the shop. Sherlock poked around in the stockroom while John checked the bathroom. They had actual clean running water and a functional toilet. For a moment, he thought he might do something stupid, like cry. He gripped the sides of the sink and took several deep breaths and tried to hold himself together. God, who would think he'd ever in his life be this ridiculously pleased to see a _petrol station toilet?_ When he was calmer, he scrubbed his hands, arms, and face and dried himself with paper towels.

When John emerged, Sherlock was back out in the shop, standing and looking at the newspapers on the rack with his back to John. John hesitated, watching him for a quiet moment. For all that they'd been glued to one another's sides, they'd had their eyes on their surroundings, or the road, or each others' backs. Or else they'd been in dark places, trying to conserve their torch batteries. He hadn't actually looked at Sherlock, _really_ looked at him, for a while. It hit him suddenly that he'd actually been prepared to completely surrender his relationship with Sherlock so that things could develop between Sherlock and Irene. He knew now that Sherlock had never had any intention of a relationship with Irene and had just been acting, but... back there, in those hours with her, it had felt so _real_ , and John had been so confused. It was as if John's grief and exhaustion had formed a hard shell around him, which was only now starting to soften. He hadn't felt the full weight of what as happening back then — hadn't felt what it would be like to step aside and let Sherlock explore his feelings with someone else. God, it would have hurt. John was so thankful to have Sherlock alive and well — and by his side.

Still, there was tension between the two of them. Learning that Sherlock hadn't actually been attracted to Irene and still — presumably — had some kind of interest in John that went beyond them being best friends had eased things between them a little, but they weren't back to normal. John hadn't felt entirely comfortable with Sherlock since, well... they'd had some quiet moments together back when they were staying in the culvert with Wiggins and everyone. Before Sherlock had shown hints that maybe he really, truly had a total lack of empathy for people who were infected. That maybe he really didn't care about human life.

"The traffic through here stopped in an attempt to slow the spread of the infection." Sherlock didn't turn around.

"Hmm?"

"Any businesses that weren't vital were closed, and most of the lorry traffic through here stopped as a result. We can tell exactly when, by these." Sherlock held up a newspaper and John moved closer to look. It was over a week old, back when the papers were still advising things like wearing medical masks and staying home whenever possible. John felt a stab of anger — because at that point, the medical officials _had_ to have known more about the infection and how serious it was than they were saying.

"This road isn't used much by anyone else. As a result, this shop remained untouched," Sherlock continued.

"Yeah. Lucky for us. But you couldn't have known about this when you made the choice to take this road?"

"No, not specifically. But I'd hoped to find something of the sort." Sherlock dropped the paper with the air of someone who has been thoroughly bored by something. He went through the shop row by row, poking at the shelves, still sipping his cold tinned soup.

As always, time was against them. Sunset always came relentlessly toward them, and they had to find safety before it happened. So John looked around, evaluating the building to see if staying there would be a possibility, or if they would be better packing up whatever food they could and looking for another location to spend the night. He hated the thought of leaving this place, though — this little bit of comfort and salvation.

One whole side of the shop — the side facing the road and the pumps — was mainly windows, which wouldn't be any protection against the Infected. With enough time and in large enough numbers, they could get _through solid wooden walls_ after all. Perhaps it was unlikely there were any of them out here, but... John wasn't going to do something reckless and stupid now and get them both killed just for a little bit of comfort.

Still, if they locked themselves in the windowless stockroom for the night... it wouldn't keep a determined horde out, but it would slow them down...

"Sherlock. You reckon we should move on, or... if we were to shut ourselves in there, maybe barricade the door..."

Sherlock was rummaging through shelves and didn't look up. "Yes, I've been thinking about it as well. I think we can risk a single night here."

John breathed a sigh of relief at being able to enjoy this glorious bit of civilization a little longer. But he couldn't let himself rest yet. It was time to load up his rucksack while they still had natural light to see by. And even though Sherlock thought it was safe (or at least an acceptable risk) to stay the night, disaster could strike at any second and John would be damned if they had to cut and run without stocking up properly first.

John opened a bag of dried fruit to munch on to satisfy another craving, and began going row by row through the small store, looking for the most nutritious and vital things to pack. He wished, not for the first time, that they had proper hikers' packs instead of their smaller school rucksacks. Tins of soup and tuna fish, with bags of dried fruit, chocolates, and nuts filling in the gaps between them. Bottles of juice — he skipped water and colas completely (and, slightly regretfully, beer), and looked for the drinks with the most calories and nutrients. Basic medications, removed from their boxes to take up less room. Matches. Duct tape. String.

When John was done, his bag was bulging and very heavy and was almost certainly going to hurt his back, but he didn't care.

Sherlock came over then carrying plasters, ointments, and aloe vera, and John let out an inadvertent groan of longing. They spent several minutes treating their sunburns (Sherlock's was starting to peel and was painful to even look at) and scrapes and trying to patch up their sore, blistered feet.

Sherlock went back to filling his pack, so John went into the bathroom, ready for a more thorough wash. John set his torch on the floor, aimed at the ceiling, and it filled the room with a decent amount of light. He stripped off his shirt — with the obligatory glance at his back in the mirror — and scrubbed himself as best he could with paper towels, then leaned over the sink to wash his hair using a travel-sized bottle of shampoo from the shop. God, it felt amazing, even if the water was cold. He considered washing his clothes, but doubted they'd be dry by morning. Too bad — he'd have killed for clean underwear or a change of clothes.

John went out to his bag, padding back out into the stockroom on his bare feet (which made him nervous, in case they needed to run suddenly. Ever since leaving uni, they'd even been sleeping in their shoes for that very reason, and having them off made him feel naked. But it was also a relief to not be on guard for once). He changed his sweaty shirt for one out of his bag. It wasn't any cleaner, but at least it was dry.

Then he found Sherlock out in the shop, where he was sitting on the floor eating sunflower seeds and keeping watch out of the windows while the last of the sunlight faded.

"Shower's free," John told Sherlock, jokingly.

"Mm. I'll wash up in a bit."

John sat next to Sherlock and watched as the sky slowly changed. The light was red — eerie, but peaceful. Maybe they'd be lucky enough to have a quiet night and a solid rest for once.

"Think we need to take turns keeping watch?" John asked.

Sherlock shrugged. "It would certainly be safer, but..."

"But?"

"I'm tired. Tired of always being on guard." Sherlock slumped sideways, his head finding John's shoulder as if it were his personal pillow. Surprised, John put his arms around Sherlock. He smelled of sweat and unwashed hair and John found that he didn't mind a bit.

"Tomorrow we'll keep walking," Sherlock said. "Find someplace both defendable and hidden, something further back from the road where no one — living or dead — will find us."

"Like what? A house? A... a cave?"

"I don't know what exactly. Maybe something up in the hills." Sherlock gestured out at the darkening landscape. "Someplace we can lay low and wait the infection out. Hopefully within easy walking distance from here so we'll have a supply of food and water. We can make trips back here, stockpile as much as possible." 

"So... stop wandering. Find someplace to hunker down. For — what? Weeks? Months?" John asked. The idea of finding someplace comfortable certainly sounded much better than continuing to go on foot — and God, could his body use a rest — but it didn't sound like much of a plan.

"John, there is no help coming," Sherlock said starkly, his deep voice making his chest vibrate under John's arms. "There is no town or shelter we'll reach and magically find organization and safety, because where people are is where the infection is. We have to find a place to wait this out. That's the only way we're going to get through this. Wait for it to burn itself out. Infected bodies aren't invincible. They're decaying, and the Lost damage themselves quickly. Eventually, they'll fall apart and their numbers will dwindle. If we're very lucky, there will be enough survivors to rebuild society."

"So we wait and hope that happens? We give up and let others do the work —"

"John, all I care about is that we're uninfected and we have to stay that way. That is our goal — _survival_. That's all that matters. That's all I can think about. John, I'm tired. This isn't giving up. This is surviving. We're doing the opposite of what everyone else is, coming out here. We tried looking for something with a group of people working together, and look what it got us. I don't care about anyone else anymore. We have to depend on ourselves now."

John had rarely heard Sherlock sound so broken and unguarded. He was rambling, repeating himself, as if it were himself and not John he had to convince. "Alright. I've known for a while now that if anyone can outsmart this thing, it's you. We'll go tomorrow and see what we can find around here. But for now, let's get you cleaned up, and get some sleep." John got to his feet and helped Sherlock up.

Torches in hand, they went into the stockroom and barricaded the door with some heavy boxes. Sherlock looked so lost and confused that John had to remind him to go into the bathroom to get cleaned up. They went in together, and Sherlock stripped off his filthy shirt and jeans and stood shivering in his black briefs.

John handed him a handful of paper towels and Sherlock dampened them and scrubbed at himself. John lingered, sensing that Sherlock would need his help. And he did. John got the tiny bottle of shampoo and washed Sherlock's hair, guiding Sherlock's head under the tap.

When they were done, John tried to dry it with paper towels. He had always loved Sherlock's hair, and was fascinated watching how it insisted on curling even when wet. John's own hair — as well as his sister's — had always been stick-straight, even (in her case) resisting curling irons, so it was quite a contrast from what he was used to. At the thought of Harry he felt a twinge of anxiety in his stomach. He wished he knew what had happened to her.

"You're just like Mycroft when I came in from doing experiments in the woods," Sherlock grumbled from under the paper towels. "He'd whisk me off before Mother could see me. He'd make me presentable before we sat down for —" Sherlock's voice hitched, and he made a sound like a choking cough —"b-before we s-sat down to eat, so I wouldn't g-get scolded." He continued on, getting out the words with great difficulty around the sobs. As a person who rarely cried, he apparently didn't know how to handle sobbing and speaking at the same time. "He a-always took c-care of me."

"Oh, Sherlock." John was almost too shocked to know what to do. He'd never seen Sherlock cry before, and he never really knew what to do in that kind of a situation anyway. However, of the two of them in that room, he knew without a doubt that he was the most experienced with emotions by _far_. He had to take the role of the person who knew what to do when someone was crying. So he tossed the wet paper towels aside and got Sherlock some dry ones to blow his nose on and patted his back, making little murmuring sounds while Sherlock tried to calm down.

It seemed, despite what Sherlock had said all along, he'd cared about Mycroft after all — the big brother who had become Sherlock's legal guardian after their parents had died, and who apparently had taken care of him even before then. Thought Mycroft had still been young himself, he had nonetheless done his best with the willful and sometimes difficult Sherlock. Sherlock had repeatedly claimed indifference toward him, but John had alway suspected there was something more. No one who truly felt indifferent toward someone felt the need to mention it so often or so strongly. But now Mycroft was apparently dead or infected, and it seemed Sherlock was having a delayed reaction to the news.

Sherlock eventually pulled himself together (or at least turned his face away from John and kept busy and quiet). They put down some flattened cardboard boxes on the floor and spread out their bedrolls over them. John couldn't quite bring himself to actually strip down to something comfortable to sleep in — the need to be ready for an emergency was too strong — but for the first time in a while, he was going to bed without his jacket and shoes. They settled in, and it was the closest thing to comfortable John had been for a long time. The simple feeling of lying flat and letting the muscles of his back relax gave John a few seconds of bliss.

Sherlock fidgeted with a lot of things before finally shutting off his torch. They both lay awake in the dark, silently.

After so many days together and so many traumas, they had little left to say. And too much.

 

*  
In the morning, John started awake at the sound of a crash from the other side of the door. Sherlock wasn't next to him anymore. He rushed out into the shop and found Sherlock calmly throwing things onto the floor.

"Good morning," Sherlock said, dumping out a rubbish bin, then using it to prop the front door open.

"What are you doing?" John gasped.

"Just a little camouflage. If you would, John, pass the ketchup? And — is that brown sauce?"

Flabbergasted beyond the point of questioning the request, John found small packets of the condiments and offered them to Sherlock.

"No, no," Sherlock said, and held his hands out, palm up. "Open one of each and squeeze them out onto my hands."

"But —"

"Oh, just do it, John. It would take far, far longer to explain than it would to just show you. Instead we're standing here wasting words, while —"

"Alright, alright," John muttered, and did as Sherlock had asked, ridiculous as it was. It shut Sherlock up, at last.

Sherlock rubbed his messy hands together for a moment, and then very deliberately grabbed the outside of the doorjamb then pulled away, leaving smeary reddish handprints. He stood back and admired his work like an artist. "You understand now, I take it?"

"Making it look like there's been an attack here, so anyone who happens by — any other survivors — won't bother coming in and taking anything," John said.

"Leaving plenty of supplies that _we_ can come back for," Sherlock said, holding out his hands for a second application of fake blood.

They went outside and Sherlock added a few more artful handprints and bloody smears.

"While I finish this, make yourself useful inside, John," Sherlock said, not looking up from the 'blood spatter' he was carefully creating on the pavement.

"Oh?"

"Do what you can to disguise or hide the fact that there are still perfectly good items on the shelves. And anything else — anything we can't possibly use — you can smash and throw on the floor."

"So that it will look like the supermarket we saw — brilliant," John said, suddenly feeling enthusiastic.

It was cathartic — smashing windows, dumping things on the floor, rifling shelves. When they were done, the shop looked like survivors had looted it, and had then met a bad end when some Infected had broken in. If he had been a traveler passing by, John would choose to move on quickly rather that risk going near it.

There were still plenty of food and drinks left. Some of it, they hid in the bathroom and stockroom, so it would at least be out of sight if anyone looked in through the windows. Still, for all their work, there was no guarantee that it would still be there for them later if they came back.

Sherlock washed his hands, they had a quick breakfast, and they were ready. Their packs heavier than ever, but their moods lightened, they set out on the road once again.

*

John spotted it first. Later, he wasn't even sure how he'd managed to do it. But he'd happened to glance up, far up into the hills and rocky bluffs on one side of the road, and there — hidden behind some scraggly bushes and almost invisible as it was the same shade of washed-out brown as everything else — he could just make out a bit of a wall and the window of a shack.

After a bit of looking, they found what might have once been a trail leading up toward it, twisting and winding its way, finding footholds and steep paths through rough terrain. It brought them into a ravine with sheer walls on either side which hid the road from view.

The path led further up to a group of old, crumbling shacks. There were about a dozen buildings total, mainly made of unpainted wood, none taller than a single story and containing no more than one or two simple rooms. They were sheltered between high rocky bluffs that meandered back further away from the road toward taller hills. There was a crude kind of town square (if such a small grouping of buildings could even be called a town), around which most of the buildings were haphazardly grouped. In the square was a fire pit with what might have once been a stone oven and a few bare trees, one of which had split down the middle and now half of it was leaning over and resting on the ground. A few of the shacks had listed over and collapsed on themselves. Whatever this place had once been, it had all clearly been abandoned for years.

After so many days of anticipating attacks, the little cluster of buildings provided a worrying number of hiding places. Sherlock and John stood still, clutching their weapons, using all of their senses. The place was silent, except for the sound of a nearby creek on the right side, slightly lower than the buildings but marked clearly by the row of green trees — the only healthy ones in sight — growing along it. The sounds echoed off the stone walls of the bluffs and created odd pockets of noise and quiet. If they chose to stay here, that could be both good and bad — white noise would mask any sounds John and Sherlock might make but it would do the same for anyone approaching.

"Aside from that one —" Sherlock pointed toward a shack out at the edge on higher ground, the one John had first seen — "We're not visible from the road here," Sherlock commented. "And we're within walking distance of the shop." It was a sign of how difficult things had become for them that a few hours' walk now seemed like a reasonable way to get food.

They followed deep ruts in the path and found an overturned mine cart. "Funny place. Must have been an old mining camp." John poked the end of his clothes pole at bits of rusty, sharp metal remains of tools that poked out dangerously from the earth and weeds. 

Back behind the camp the path split. Straight ahead, it led up into the hills. To the left, it led to the main entryway to the mine, shored up with timbers. There were heavy metal-barred doors across it. They were old, but the chain and padlock that secured them were more modern, although obviously not touched in a few years. They rattled the gate and the lock anyway and found them secure, and it was just as well — a cool, dark tunnel like that was the kind of place the Infected liked to hide out in during the day.

Even without the threat of the Infected, the mine was eerie. It sucked air in. They stood at the brink, silently staring into the darkness as it pulled at them.

"Come on. We need to go check the rest," John said at last.

Cautiously, with weapons drawn, they went back to the buildings. One was larger and stood slightly apart, and — most importantly — it was made of _stone_. Unlike the other shacks, someone had gone to the trouble of boarding up the high, narrow windows when they'd left it. Carefully, they swung the door open, braced for an attack from something inside. But nothing happened.

It consisted of a single circular room about the size of one of the dorm rooms back at uni. Inside there was a jumble of rubbish in one corner, a few wooden crates, and no furniture apart from rough shelves built into one wall.

John ran his hand over one of the walls, roughly-made of stone and mortar, but very sound. "It's solid. My God, Sherlock!" John almost laughed out loud at their luck, but something made him keep his voice curiously low and hushed, as if they were in church. "I'd like to see the Infected try to get through this! But what would this building have been for? Why is it so different from the others?"

"Some kind of overseer's office, perhaps? Or law enforcement?" Sherlock guessed, poking at rusty chains in the pile of rubbish with the toe of his shoe. He noticed a matching heavy metal ring set into the wall above them and pulled at it to test its sturdiness. "Crude but effective. Out here, outside the law, they had to devise their own law enforcement. Likely, they were mining something valuable and had to deal with workers who attempted to steal."

"They'd have needed that with a town this small? It's tiny."

"There aren't many houses but they were likely stuffed with workers in its heyday."

"Sherlock, this... this could work," John said, optimism creeping into his voice in spite of himself. "It's not visible from the road, it's close enough to the shop that we can go back for more supplies, this building is strong enough — we'll just have to reinforce that door and maybe the windows. And there's a path leading out of the back of the camp, so there's a way to escape and nowhere to get cornered. It's — I mean, it's really amazingly perfect."

"It is, isn't it?" Sherlock looked at John with an amazed smile. But only for a second. "Wait. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We need to look around thoroughly."

They went around from building to building. A few had fallen in on themselves — John grabbed Sherlock's shoulder and pulled him back when the entire structure of one shack shifted as Sherlock opened the door.

But while some were flimsy with age and decay, a few had stubbornly locked doors that they couldn't get through.

"Should we break in?" John asked, nervously.

"No point. Rusted solid." Sherlock pointed to the door latch. "No one could possibly be hiding in there."

Still, the locked ones were unnerving. It was easy to imagine someone watching them from the windows... but they found nothing in the shacks except for some beer bottles, a crisps wrapper with a distinctly 80s look to it, a bit of graffiti, and a layer of dust. No one had been here for years.

"So — is this it? Are we going to stay here?" John asked.

Sherlock nodded. "We'll stay, but we'll be cautious. And we won't stop exploring the area just because we've found a place that seems safe."

If Sherlock thought this place was deserted and safe — or as safe as anything could be anymore — that was good enough for John. Finally they were having a bit of luck.

They went back to the stone house. There was a layer of dust on the floor there too, now disturbed by their footprints. Sherlock shrugged off his pack and dropped it on the cleanest bit of floor, set his spear aside, and collapsed on the floor, rubbing his shoulders. He leaned back against his pack and closed his eyes.

"Let's not get too comfortable yet," John said. "We have work to do to make camp safe still."

Sherlock made a sound of agreement but didn't get up. Of course he was tired — on top of all the walking, he hadn't slept much for several days now. He'd been up smoking all night on the roof, and then he'd sacrificed a night's sleep to talk to Irene, and while John had slept soundly at the petrol station, he didn't know if Sherlock had. The sight of him now, sunburned, sweaty, dusty, and tired, his guard completely down against any danger, did funny things to John. In that moment, watching Sherlock, John wanted nothing more than to sit down and believe themselves to be safe, to forget all the complicated business of keeping themselves alive and just spend time with Sherlock — like they used to, but with more depth and less restraint. But he couldn't risk throwing their safety away by being lulled in a false sense of security.

So John sat and watched the camp and thought about what they needed to do as Sherlock dozed. Maybe he nodded off too, leaning against the doorjamb. He _must_ have. He must have just dreamed that he heard voices and sobs echoing off the cliffs around their camp. He snapped to attention with a cold chill up his spine and his blood pounding in his ears, but he listened and didn't hear it again.


	11. Chapter 11

Sherlock got up and dug for something in his rucksack, bringing them both out of their exhausted stupor. It was growing late. The slanting sunlight and rugged landscape created dramatic shadows.

Sherlock lit up a cigarette and held it in the corner of his mouth. He picked some up at the petrol station. "Come on, John," Sherlock said, rushing outside with only his spear, an empty tin can, and a small bundle of something in his hands.

John didn't feel much like rushing. "Wait — what? Do I need to bring —?"

"No," Sherlock called back, now rushing along the dirt path among the weeds, winding between the shacks and heading in the direction of the road. With a groan, John grabbed his clothes pole and followed him.

Sherlock led him to the edge of the cluster of ramshackle buildings and up a small slope to the one shack that stood alone on higher ground. "This was the one we glimpsed from the road," Sherlock said. "See?" he pointed down to the road.

He set the tin down on a flat rock, stubbed out his cigarette, then unrolled the small bundle he'd been carrying, and John stared for a moment at the pink flowery design — thinking ridiculously of women's underwear — before finally recognizing the gloves that Sherlock had taken from the gardener's shed back on campus. Sherlock put them on.

"And we're doing what, exactly? A spot of gardening?" John asked, irritable from lack of sleep.

"This." Sherlock kicked the wall of the shack. The whole structure shuddered, and the wall slumped inward a bit in a weak, defeated kind of way.

"What the hell, Sherlock?!"

Sherlock gave a few more kicks to different parts of the structure, weakening it. Dust and dirt rained down off of the roof. Then he grasped one of the old, weak boards and tugged, shaking it to loosen the nails which squeaked and squealed as they were pulled out.

It was apparent that Sherlock meant to dismantle it, and John joined in, even without understanding why they were doing it. It was a relief, tearing something to pieces. It was like his muscles were acting out all of the grief and pain and frustration he'd been through but had held inside. It was difficult work without tools, but the years had been hard on the structure and it slumped over without putting up a fight. A cloud of dust rose up, covering them and making John's nose run.

They set aside some of the strongest of the boards to take back to camp, and put the loose nails into the tin. After they were done, the remains of the shack walls and roof were lying flat on the ground, well hidden by the scrubby bushes.

"Now, if any survivors do pass by on the road, there will be no evidence that there's anything manmade here. We're completely hidden," Sherlock said.

They made several trips, carrying the boards back up to camp and stacking them by the door of their cabin, which they were going to use them to reinforce.

They spent the rest of the afternoon working on it. They added a second layer of boards to the wooden door, using rocks to drive the nails in (or, as it seemed to John, _he_ worked while Sherlock stood back and contemplated the cabin, like an artist scrutinizing his latest painting). Now that the initial enjoyment of tearing the shack down had passed, John was aware of his aching muscles and sore fingers, and the fact that one slip while hammering in a rusty nail with a rock could mean tetanus and they currently had no access to medical aid.

"That door may still not be strong enough. _Especially_ if you put that board that way, John, turn it the _other way_ ," Sherlock said. "Hmm. Maybe this wasn't the best option."

John, working on his hands and knees, glanced back over his shoulder, wiping the sweat from his face with his dusty sleeve. Sherlock was standing there — with his pink gloves still on, despite the fact that he wasn't actually working anymore — staring at the roof of the hut.

"It would be safer to be off the ground. They can't climb. John, do you think you could build a ladder?" Sherlock asked.

"Fuck no," John snapped. A ladder, _really?_ When he apparently could hardly even figure out how to reinforce a door to Sherlock's satisfaction? "Can we just finish this please?"

Sherlock gave no indication of having heard him. "Could build a trap door into the roof... ladder inside, climb up... hmm."

"And the first time it rains all our food and clothes and blankets get soaked and we die of pneumonia. No thanks." _There_. John hammered in the last nail, and sat back on his heels. The door wasn't pretty and it wouldn't stop a mob of the Infected if they wanted to get in badly enough, but it was something. A sense of security.

As darkness fell outside, they ate a quick meal of whatever was handy and unrolled their bedrolls on the cabin floor. John shed his dusty outer layer of clothing. He would have to figure out how to wash their clothes tomorrow — he felt disgusting. He lay down with his back against the door. Not commenting on John's choice of location, Sherlock lay down with his weapon within reach and clicked off his torch.

It took some time, but finally John started to nod off. His thoughts had just started to turn odd, the way he sometimes was aware of right as he was falling asleep, was when he jolted awake by a scream outside. Sherlock gasped in a way John had never heard from him before. John sat up and slammed his back against the closed door — _as long as he could feel that it was there, they were safe_. The scream still hadn't stopped. John held his breath, his skin broken out in gooseflesh and chills running up his spine. It was too dark to see Sherlock, but he could hear Sherlock scrambling around, picking up his spear.

The scream rose and dipped, turned into moans and wails and occasional sobs. It was just like what John had heard earlier, only this time he was sure that he was hearing it. But who — or _what_ — could be out there, so close to their camp?

Sherlock let out a long breath. "The wind. John, it's the wind."

"There is no way that's the wind, Sherlock, no bloody way."

"It's the wind through the mine, reverberating around and bouncing off the rocks out there. It sounds strange, yes, but that's all it is. Listen to it carefully." Sherlock's blanket rustled as he settled back down. "It's annoying, that's all. Nothing to be afraid of.

John tried to be calm and listen. Sherlock was probably right — Sherlock was _always_ right, as he'd tell anyone who would stand still long enough to listen. But how could that sound be coming from anything other than a living (or... _not_ living) creature?

The wind. That was all. But the sound was still uncanny.

Sherlock snored, but John spent most of the night sitting there with his back pressed to the door and his weapon in his hands. The sounds came and went during the night. Whenever John fell into a light sleep they seemed to change and grow. A whisper in a dream told him, _"Your friend is wrong about us. We are not wind. We are both more and less than wind."_

John jolted awake after he saw an image in a nightmare of a trapdoor in the ceiling dropping open under the weight of a group of silent, dark, creeping _things_ that poured in like ants from a disturbed anthill. He had to turn on the torch to check the ceiling after that. But the ceiling was intact — it had just been John's sleeping mind distorting Sherlock's earlier comments.

Still, the sounds came from outside. How had the people who had lived and worked here put up with it? Maybe it wasn't always so bad — maybe it was just an uncommonly windy night. Or... actually, John realized that he didn't know why the mine had stopped being worked. Could the workers have given up and abandoned their camp because of some kind of danger? Could it be related to the sounds? No, that was _stupid_ , and it was not the right way to think when you were trying to calm down and get to sleep.

John wished he could read or listen to music to take his mind off of things, but there was nothing he could do but sit and wait for either sleep or sunrise.

Dawn won.

They opened the door and found the camp just as they had left it, bright with morning sunlight. John had known better, but part of him had expected to see evidence of something horrible that had taken place there during the night.

_Fuck, if it wasn't a normal day. How could it be a normal day?_

Sherlock was full of plans that morning. Also, energy. While John sat on a rock, groggily eating breakfast by the fire pit (which they'd debated about having an actual fire in, and for now their decision was not to), Sherlock climbed the bluff behind camp. The face of it was sheer, wall-like and nearly vertical, but the side was gentle and climbable. This was the furthest John had been away from Sherlock since the whole thing had begun, and it made him nervous.

"John, I can see the road from here!" Sherlock shouted down.

"Brilliant. Well done, you," John called back, irritably.

Sherlock sat on a wide, flat ridge and dangled his legs over the edge. He lit a cigarette. "What it means is we can watch the road from here. When we begin to see the lorries running again, it will mean supplies are being moved in an organized way again. Which will mean the situation in more populated areas has improved and we can return to civilization."

"Right," John muttered. That actually made sense. What didn't make sense was how much energy Sherlock seemed to have. He must be as sore as John, and even if he'd got more sleep than John, he shouldn't have had that much energy. It was annoying.

Sherlock took his mobile out of his pocket and checked it. "No signal up here, though. Well, that answers that question. Now on to the next order of business. We should go back to the petrol station and bring back as much as we can carry. It's still early — let's see how many trips we can make today."

John sighed and rubbed his face.

*

Bringing more things from the shop back meant they had to empty their bags, because they had nothing else to carry anything in. In their cabin, they left their precious supplies, emptying their rucksacks of everything except for a bottle of water each and a first-aid kit. It felt so wrong, leaving behind the things they so desperately needed. John felt naked.

They took their weapons and followed the path back down to the road. It was a several minute walk winding downhill and through rock outcroppings. At some point, the miners must have had an alternate route for getting their equipment up to the camp, because this way would never work, John thought. Probably from the far side of the mine.

When they got to the road they stopped and looked back toward camp. Honestly, it was amazing they'd ever spotted it at all. The path was all but invisible, and now that they'd knocked down the one shack that had been off by itself, there were no signs left of anything manmade being up there. From every angle, the rocks, bluffs, and sparse trees and brush completely hid the shacks.

As for the path, it looked to John like something that might have occurred naturally, such as a place rainwater might have eroded the landscape. Just to make sure that no one else would notice it, though, they dragged some fallen branches across the base of the path and tried to place them in a way that looked natural. Sherlock took a frustratingly long time (especially with how exposed John felt out here on the road) tweaking it and smoothing out the drag marks, while John stayed alert, watching the road in both directions.

It occurred to John suddenly that with the path so well camouflaged they themselves might not find it again. He'd learned early on in his friendship with Sherlock, that as intelligent as Sherlock was, it wasn't usually a good idea to leave the practicalities of such things up to him. John needed to find a distinguishing mark so they could find their camp again. He noticed that the pavement was old and cracking, and there was a long series of cracks that kind of looked like a grinning dog with its noise pointing at the trail. He'd watch for that on the way back.

The walk back to the petrol station was long and grueling. John was simply too anxious to calm down and enjoy the fact that they seemed to have found fairly good — and safe — place to live for now. There were still plenty of dangers and getting to the shop meant survival, so John pushed on. He had been so overwhelmed with loss, chaos, and confusion recently that he sometimes settled into a buzzy numb place, and he went there as he walked.

They talked little, and when they did, it was to sketch out rough plans for the next several days. They'd set up their camp, then scout out the road ahead and the general area, using the camp as their home base and returning to the petrol station for supplies as needed. They both wanted to try to improve their weapons as well, using some of the scrap metal from the old mining equipment lying around the camp. Feeling a little guilty, John also spoke up about needing to rest. Sherlock seemed tireless, and it could be hard sometimes reminding him that ordinary mortals needed things like sleep.

Thankfully, they found the shop as they had left it. They filled up their bags quickly, allowing themselves few luxuries.

*

They made three round trips that day, pushing themselves beyond what they thought they could actually do, coming back to their cabin with crisps, bottled water and juice, dried fruit and nuts, beef jerky, and pop-top tins of tuna, soup, and stew, and anything else they could lay their hands on.

Back at camp, they collapsed, feeling relieved about having got so much food, but utterly exhausted. John soaked his feet in the creek — he'd popped a few blisters. The water was amazingly cool and refreshing. He couldn't wait to get in there and bathe and wash his clothes properly, but it was getting to be evening and even out here in the middle of nowhere he wasn't suicidal enough to risk being outside when it was dark. He sat on a dry rock at the shallow edge of the creek where he could see Sherlock moving restlessly around the camp and fidgeting with things in the cabin.

Eventually Sherlock came over. "John, eat this," he demanded, handing John a tin of soup, then sitting down at the side of the creek with his own. Sherlock hadn't remembered to bring any of the plastic spoons they'd picked up earlier, but John took it gratefully, glad that Sherlock was — for once — being the one who was watching out for John's needs.

Sherlock gulped his soup, then looked at John, as if gauging his progress. "Quickly — quickly, John!"

"Alright, hang on," John muttered. Leave it to Sherlock to ruin it.

When John finished, Sherlock snatched the empty tin from his hand and took it along with his own back over to the dirt path at the edge of camp and sat down in the weeds.

John got up to follow him, curious, swearing at the pain in his feet and legs. By the time he got his socks and shoes back on and limped over, he found Sherlock stringing empty tin cans —the ones they'd just emptied, as well as a collection of rusty old ones — onto a length of string. He'd used a nail and a rock to punch holes in them, and was stringing them like beads.

"Art project?" John asked.

"Trip wire." Sherlock gave John that particular upward glance through his lashes that always meant he was about to say something that he thought was terribly funny. "Don't trip on it."

"Yes, obviously." John sighed.

Sherlock lifted it up and shook it, and the tins rattled against each other. "If anyone — or anything — _does_ trip on it, the noise will alert us. We'll need more tins, of course. But look — run it through here, around that post and that tree, hide it a bit in the weeds, and if anyone or any _thing_ walks by, we'll hear it. It has to rest on the ground, though, so the wind doesn't set it off, so it's going to take a bit of engineering."

"Oh, I get it. Look, Sherlock, I'm going to sleep now. I don't think I can stay vertical much longer."

"Right, goodnight." Sherlock, crouching down and adjusting his project, didn't even look up.

"Well, are you going to come in soon?" John asked.

"Yes, yes."

"Because it's almost dark out, and..." John hesitated and shifted his weight. "Look, I can't go to sleep if you're out here. If I don't know you're safe, I'll never be able to relax."

Sherlock looked up then, sitting back on his heels. Even in the twilight, Sherlock's eyes were a strikingly clear blue-grey, especially when they were open wide like that.

The silence drew on, and John felt a need to clarify. "I mean, you'll get so engrossed in whatever you're doing, you'll sit out here all night. You'd — you'd let..." John had been about to make a joke about the Infected coming upon an oblivious Sherlock, but thought better of it. This wasn't the time or place to make jokes like that. "...wolves drag you off, you idiot."

Sherlock gave the string one last testing tug, setting the tins rattling. Then he stood up. "Alright."

They went into the cabin. John fell asleep almost immediately after laying down, and woke up around ten the next morning without having even changed position in his sleep. If the wind — or whatever — had howled the night before, John had slept through it.

*

That morning, John had his heart set on clothes washing and vowed to himself to not let Sherlock talk him out of it or drag him off to do something else, under any circumstances. Fortunately, Sherlock seemed to be keeping himself entertained, running all over the camp and poking around in the weeds like a cat after the red dot of a laser pointer. John found the rest of the string and strung it up between two of the leafless, twisted trees to make a clothesline. As he did, he noticed bits of old, decaying rope tied up in the branches. The ends were cut cleanly. John wondered what they might have been used for.

He picked up their dirty clothes (which they'd thrown into a pile on the floor of their cabin) and hauled them down to the creek and then stopped and tried to figure out how washing them was going to work exactly, without detergent. Or, come to think of it, a _washing machine_.

He wound up just swishing them around in the water a bit, then wringing them out and carrying them individually back to the clothesline. It was hard work — the wet clothes were heavy, and John had to reinforce the line with several more strands of string. They didn't have any clothespins, so he slung them over the line and hoped the wind wouldn't blow them off. John wound up getting wet and dripped on a lot and his hands got cold and achey from wringing the wet clothes, and it was all a lot more work than it seemed like it should be.

Sherlock continued to explore the area around camp. He followed the creek downhill, toward the road (alarm bells went off in John's mind when Sherlock got too far away from him, and fought back the urge to run after him). Sherlock came back excited and wanting to show John something.

So John went with him this time, walking along the banks of the creek, until John could hear rushing water ahead. The creek grew narrower; the current picked up. Soon they reached the end, where it cascaded down into a gap — a rocky crevice a few feet wide.

John, in his anxiety, actually reached out to grab the back of Sherlock's shirt as he approached it. But Sherlock stopped just on the brink and knelt down. Although they could only see what looked like a large crack in the ground, there was obviously an open space below it. The creek dropped down into the darkness with a roar — a waterfall in the dark — and continued flowing through some cavern or underground tunnel. When the wind changed direction, it gusted up out of the crevice toward them, carrying spray from the waterfall and the same earthy, dank smell John had noticed around the entrance to the mine.

"I wondered why the creek didn't cross the road. Obviously, it's because it goes underground. This whole area must be riddled with caves," Sherlock said, peering into the darkness. "They probably connect with the mine. See, it _must_ connect somewhere, for it to get these kinds of drafts through it. There may be other openings around here. We should watch our footing when we're exploring."

"And make sure not to get washed downstream in the creek," John said, with a shudder.

Sherlock shrugged, entirely more comfortable with all of this than John was. "The current up near camp is gentle, and it's shallow. I don't think we have anything to fear there, unless we get large amounts of rainfall. Besides, there are those." He pointed at several large, rounded rocks that stuck up out of the water near the edge. "You could catch yourself on those, before you went over."

"Yes, alright, let's not test that theory, shall we?" John tugged at Sherlock's arm until he got up. As they walked back to camp, John mentally worked out the location of the entrance to the mine compared with the waterfall. If Sherlock was right and they connected, then the tunnels probably passed right under their camp. He wondered just how extensive the system of tunnels was. What felt like solid ground under their feet could be nothing more than a thin layer with a massive chasm under it.

*

John was trying to sweep the dust and debris out of the cabin with a leafy branch from one of the trees by the creek (and it wasn't working very well) when Sherlock burst in and started rummaging in their pile of possessions on the floor, which John was going to try to organize once he finished sweeping.

"John, where are my things from my rucksack? They were right here, with my dirty pants on top."

"I... don't know why you want _them_ , but I washed them. They're drying on the line." John tapped Sherlock's leg with the branch. "Move. I'm trying to sweep here."

"You can sweep when you're dead, John! Now where are my gloves?"

"I think they're over — wait, I can _sweep when I'm_...? Did you just make a _pun_?" John stared at Sherlock, shocked. "Oh my God, you did!"

"Aha!" Sherlock pulled out the pink gloves from the pile with a flourish and raced back outside.

Well, at least he wasn't bored.

John finished the floor, then organized their supplies and possessions on the shelves and neatly on the floor against one wall. It was satisfying, and John stood back admiring his work for longer than he would have if anyone could see him.

He heard a clatter outside and went to see what Sherlock was doing. As he'd suspected, Sherlock was gathering up the rusty tools and scraps of metal from around the camp. He'd made a pile under one of the trees closest to the fire pit. John went over to where Sherlock was digging up a partially buried bit of rusty metal at the edge of the open space between the shacks.

But then, John noticed something in the dry weeds to one side. "Sherlock..."

"Hmm?"

"There are... Um. Are these graves?"

Sherlock didn't even look up. "Yes. Crude headstones. Probably the best they could manage out here."

"Oh. Right." John wished he hadn't known they were there. It wasn't that he was squeamish about death. It was more that... he was getting a picture of the life the people here must have had, and it was bleak. And he didn't want Sherlock and himself to wind up like them if he could help it.

A wail came from the the direction of the mine entrance at that moment. John reflexively looked that way and froze.

Even Sherlock stopped what he was doing and looked. He sat back on his heels and wiped the sweat on his forehead with his arm. "I told you, John, it's the wind."

Standing in broad daylight, watching the trees and the clothes on the line blowing in time with the shrieks, it was much easier to tell — and to _believe_ — that the sounds really were caused by the wind whipping through the rocks.

"There are natural fissures throughout these rock walls," Sherlock said. "Such as the one I found that the creek flows into. The wind must blow through them, or across their openings, and the rock faces echo and amplify the sounds." He glanced at John as an especially hard gust whipped through their camp. "See? It really is just the wind."

"Oh shit!" John gasped, and ran to get the laundry that was blowing away.


	12. Chapter 12

John mainly spent the rest of the day resting and taking care of things around the camp, including using bits of string to secure their clothes onto the clothesline. He ate a lot too, despite having promised himself he would ration the food. It just felt so good, having enough food. A few days ago, he'd had to tighten his belt a notch to keep his jeans from sliding down, and he'd noticed that Sherlock's were sitting low on his hips as well. John's body had changed in other ways from the amount of walking they had done. He'd been fairly athletic back at uni, but since they'd left, he'd gained muscle in his legs as well as having slimmed down. Another advantage to staying here at camp until the situation with the infection improved was that they wouldn't burn so many calories walking every day, and they could stretch out their food supplies longer.

Meanwhile, Sherlock sat in the shade and worked on their weapons. He stripped his down to its components, then carved out a groove in the wood for the blade to sit in, as well as notches for the wire that held it together, making it all much more secure. He bound and twisted the wire tightly, then wrapped it with duct tape again. He shortened the haft to a more comfortable length as well. He repeated the process with the second clothes pole and a piece of old metal he'd found to make a new weapon for John, then sharpened both blades with the file he'd taken from the gardener's shed.

*

The wind kicked up again around twilight.

John had slept through it all the night before, and he was determined to do so again. Unlike the night before, however, he didn't have the advantage of being utterly exhausted. He'd done chores around camp all day, getting things set up and trying to make things more comfortable, but it had been a comparatively easy day. He was tired and achy, but that just seemed to aggravate his insomnia.

The floorboards in the cabin were warped and uneven — something he'd been too preoccupied or exhausted to notice before. No matter how he lay, his back hurt. The floor at the shop had been just as hard, but at least it had been level. He thought of it longingly. Imagine — wanting to sleep on the floor of a petrol station shop. It just showed how far from normal their lives had become.

Always in John's previous life, there had been a home to go to, and the certainty that he could return to it. Where and what that home had been had shifted — parents' house, grandma's spare room, his and Mike's dorm room — but they had all been _home_. Even when things with his family had been in chaos, no matter what else had been going on, there had been a promise of basic comforts in his future. At the very least, a bed, a shower, and a hot meal. He had taken them for granted.

Now, all he wanted was a home to go to, to quit this uncomfortable, uncertain, unsafe way of living and just go _home_ — and yet, no such place existed. Even if, by some miracle, his family was alive and untouched by the infection, he could no more reach them than the moon.

He knew he was just wasting the battery, but John turned on his mobile and tried to get a signal, shielding the screen with his hand so it wouldn't disturb Sherlock. He scrolled through his contacts. Their names were all there, but worthless. He had no way to reach any of them. They were all gone, all lost.

Memories of all he had been through — the phone call with Harry about Clara and his parents, Mike leaving, Professor Hudson checking their backs, Sally painting the tribute to her aunt on the wall of the house, Soo Lin crying in the culvert, Greg and Sally and Philip being overtaken by the swarm of the infected — just because they'd tried to help some scared kids, Sherlock breaking down after talking about his brother, oh God. In misery, John curled up and shook with the effort it took to control himself.

Sherlock shifted next to him. John heard his bedding rustling and the floorboards creaking. Then Sherlock's arm, warm and heavy, draped across him. John froze, unsure if Sherlock had just happened to roll over in his sleep at that moment, or if he was awake and knew what was going on.

But Sherlock moved closer, and pulled John, still curled up tight, against his chest. Gently, Sherlock took the mobile from his hand and turned it off. John caught one last glance at the his list of contacts before the screen went dark. Sherlock settled against him again, warm and comfortable, and John felt himself start to relax.

Was this home, then? Was this place his home now, with Sherlock? Could the two of them make a place to call home, together?

After all, there was still one name on his list of contacts that wasn't lost to him — Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock tipped John's face up with a gentle hand on the back of his neck and brushed their lips together lightly, massaging the corner of John's lips with his thumb until John opened his mouth. Then their kisses became wet and hot, soft and hard at the same time, and for a little while John forgot the hard floorboards and the screaming wind and his achey muscles.

Then Sherlock froze for a moment, then pulled away abruptly. Not understanding, John clung on to him, but Sherlock pushed him away and sat up. Then John heard it — a clattering from outside, a new and unfamiliar sound among the wind's howls and the rustle of dry plants. Tin cans — Sherlock's trip wire.

They got to their feet in the dark and found their weapons and flanked the door, tensed and waiting for an attack.

None came. After an indeterminable time, John whispered, "Maybe it was the wind."

"No. I constructed it so the wind wouldn't trigger it."

"An animal, then. Or, I dunno, a branch fell and hit it."

"Perhaps," Sherlock said, after a pause.

They waited a while longer, standing like statues, but nothing else happened. John's heart rate was almost back to normal, and his mind had just started to wander, when Sherlock spoke.

"John, go to sleep. I'll keep watch and wake you if anything happens."

"I don't think I could sleep," John said.

"You need to. You'll need your strength tomorrow."

"What about you?"

"I handle sleep deprivation better than you do."

John sighed and found his blankets in the darkness and lay back down.

*

John woke in the morning, surprised at how quickly he had fallen asleep and how well-rested he felt. Sherlock was gone, which gave John a moment of panic, but John saw him as soon as he opened the door and looked around in the early morning sunlight, sitting on the rocky bluff that overlooked the camp, staring out at the landscape far beyond contemplatively.

As for the camp itself, everything looked normal, even the tripwire. There was no sign that anything had triggered it the night before. Sherlock must have already inspected it closely. Surely if he'd found anything alarming, he'd have woken John and told him. A false alarm, then, and Sherlock was sulking because he wasn't clever enough to keep the wind from setting it off after all. John glanced back up at him. He seemed to have really taken to that spot, although John hadn't been up there yet. It was high enough to get a good view of the area, but not high enough to make John worry about the drop.

John checked the clothes on the line and found them dry but stiff. Sherlock's jeans were the pair that he had ripped when he faked his injury. The red stain hadn't completely come out, but John had washed them anyway as Sherlock only had two pairs with him. He needed Sherlock to change into them today so he could wash the others — the ones Sherlock was currently wearing.

John took them off the line slowly. He'd been so furious at how Sherlock had deceived him by faking an injury. The evidence of it was still right here, in the jeans and in the fading bruise on Sherlock's sunburned cheek. He cringed at the memory of punching Sherlock. John understood that Sherlock had done it to save them both, but he was still uncomfortable that Sherlock had manipulated him like that. He couldn't properly get his head around it, and yet he still couldn't come up with a better solution.

He tossed Sherlock's clean clothes onto his bedroll and took his own down to the creek along with a travel-sized bottle of shampoo from the petrol station. He was determined to wash today — he was tired of smelling himself — even if it meant stripping down out in the open and washing in the freezing creek, which really was the only option. He'd just get it over as quickly as possible.

He was balanced on one foot, taking his pants off, when Sherlock called down, "John, get ready to leave. We're going to explore the road in the other direction today."

"Jesus, Sherlock," John muttered to himself, then called back, "Kind of naked at the moment."

"Yes, obviously."

John couldn't see it from where he was, but he could hear Sherlock rolling his eyes in his tone of voice. He hadn't looked up, hoping to minimize any weirdness between them, but of course from Sherlock's vantage point he could see the whole camp, including the creek... and John's arse. John was determined to not be embarrassed, though.

The creek was at most calf-deep and the rocks at the bottom were smooth under his feet. He knelt down and splashed water on himself, then quickly washed himself with a handful of the shampoo.

"I want to find out what's in that direction. There may be more potential for getting supplies, and we can watch for any traces of the Lost in the area. Pack enough food and water for an all-day walk."

"Again — _currently naked_." John scrubbed at his greasy hair with handfuls of water and shampoo. Bits of foam floated downstream.

"Whenever you're finished, then. Take your time."

 _Take your time?_ Sherlock never said that. About anything. Ever. John raised his eyes at last and saw Sherlock lying on his belly at the edge of the outcropping, watching John with his chin in his hand. He'd be the very picture of a teenage girl if he just had a frilly bed to stretch out on and a mobile pressed to his ear. Maybe a teddy to cuddle. John snorted with stifled laughter.

"Yeah, watching me — not creepy at all," John called, then stood up and dried himself as best he could with his old shirt.

"I'm watching _out_ for you, John. We mustn't drop our guards, not even here, not even during the day."

John got dressed, finding it impossible to keep the sandy soil from sticking to his wet feet and getting everywhere. He wasn't as dry as he'd like to be either. "What happened last night? With — with the sounds we heard, I mean."

"I don't know. I hate not knowing. But there was no evidence."

"Well, that's good, right? The Infected would have left some traces. I mean they aren't exactly subtle." John scrubbed at his hair with his shirt. "Anyway, your clothes are dry, Sherlock. You should change."

*

They set out on foot with their weapons and their packs filled with emergency supplies, and walked up the road in the direction opposite to the petrol station. John checked his watch as they left. He'd made a note of what time the sun set the night before. In order to get back before it was dark, they'd have to make sure to leave themselves enough time, and they'd be slower coming back than going, since they'd be tired. They would reach a point of no return, at which point they'd have to turn back or risk being on the road after dark.

They walked steadily and without speaking much. There wasn't much to see — just more of the same. Road, rocky bluffs, bare and twisted trees, and the occasional abandoned or wrecked car. There were a few scattered houses, all wood and unsuitable as shelter, and all already broken-into and looted. For now, they made note of them but kept moving.

*

It was early afternoon when they came upon an odd sight. The road passed through a canyon, with steep stone walls on either side. Ahead, the road was completely blocked with shipping containers, broken-down vehicles, crates, and other debris that had been stacked and nailed together. They stopped and hung back, wary. Beyond the barricade, they could see a building, and beyond that a sign for a restaurant and another for a petrol station.

"Who's there?" called a female voice from the top of the barricade, and John saw two people crouched there, one on either end, watching them.

"Oh, thank goodness, thank _goodness_!" Sherlock exclaimed in a voice unlike his own, loud enough for the people to hear. He waved his arms like a castaway trying to signal a passing ship. "See, I told you, John, if we just kept walking we'd get to civilization eventually! At last!"

"Holy fuck, Sherlock," John muttered. Sherlock's abrupt persona change had hit him like a punch to the gut, even if he knew it might be a useful tool to get information. "Bit over the top, isn't it?"

As they got closer, they could see the two people better. A bloke about their age and a girl probably a few years younger. She had a hunting rifle in her hand, but wasn't aiming it at them. There's something about them, John thought. They had some of the same wariness and grief about them that they'd seen in the other survivors, but something was different. They didn't look as hungry or as desperate. Maybe it was because they were in a safe place, and not out on the road?

"Hello there," the young man called.

"Hello," the girl said as well. "What can we do for you?"

And oh God, it was something of a relief to see other people again, even under these circumstances.

"Well, John here and I have walked all this way — oh, where are my manners, I'm Matt and this is John," Sherlock began, in a scatter-brained kind of way.

"Molly and Jim," the girl said with a smile. "Easy to remember — we share initials, don't we? M and J?"

"Hello, nice to meet you," John said.

"Well, we walked all this way—" Sherlock gestured back toward the road behind them "—hoping to find someplace safe. There was a police officer, an officer Duncan, and he told us to find you and that we'd find a town."

A look passed between the two strangers. John couldn't read it. Sherlock plunged on as if he'd only seen indecision in it and no further question. "Oh, we're not asking for something for nothing. We'll work, of course."

Molly came across the top of the barricade, closer to them, and sat down with her legs hanging over the edge.

"Well, about that..." she began.

"You're a waitress," Sherlock said, automatically.

"What...?" Molly looked down at herself.

Her clothes looked pretty normal to John (aside from a gaudy flowered barrette in her hair that seemed too frivolous for the circumstances) so he wasn't sure how Sherlock knew, but he'd been around Sherlock long enough to know he would wind up being proven correct.

"A waitress, likely for that restaurant behind you. The pad of paper in your pocket, with the pen tucked in next to it, for taking orders. You're not using it for that now, but the habit remains," Sherlock explained, very nearly dropping his friendly 'Matt' persona. Perhaps he realized it, because he snapped back into it quickly. "My girlfriend's a waitress, and she — I mean, she _was_ a waitress." His voice got croaky suddenly and he put his hand to his mouth and looked at the ground. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, no, I'm sorry," Molly said hastily, looking stricken. "You're right. I am a waitress. I'm just doing it to save money for uni, but..." she trailed off.

Jim crouched next to her. "Look, friends..."

"Matt," Sherlock said again, as if so distracted with grief that he'd forgotten he already introduced himself.

"And again, I'm John," John said, as he apparently was allowed to use his own name in Sherlock's grand plan.

"Look, about coming into town. If it were up to us, we'd let you," Molly said, exchanging a look with Jim, who nodded. "But we had a town meeting and everyone voted and decided that if we're going to survive this, we can't let anyone in."

"Officer Duncan was the last one. He helped us organize, and then he moved on to try to help more people. That's been several days ago. We turned away a few outsiders that day and the next, but we haven't seen anyone since. Until today. We weren't sure there was anyone left. But if Duncan's alive — well that's a relief, isn't it, Moll?" Jim said.

John glanced at Sherlock, unsure what this whole Officer Duncan business was exactly and where he'd picked up the name from. There had been that police car, smashed up and broken down on the road, way back on the other side of the petrol station. Sherlock had taken a keen interest in it. Had that been it?

"If all you're wanting to do is to pass through and continue on the road on the other side of town, we could probably let you do that. We'd need to ask the others, though. They'd probably want to walk you through town and out the other end with escorts," Molly told them. "But you really don't want to do that. The other side of town is overrun."

"Overrun..." John repeated.

Jim nodded. "You're on the safer side right now. The canyon walls form a natural barrier, so there's no way around town, only through. And you should see the barricade and defenses we have on the other side."

"We keep watch at the barricades constantly, but it's the other side we get all the trouble from. You're honestly pretty safe where you are, comparatively. And anyway, we're really just a tiny little town, mostly catering to the lorry drivers on this road. That's about all the traffic we normally get. There's not much of interest in here. We're just keeping ourselves safe from the infection," Molly said.

"No infection in your town? At all?" Sherlock asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Well, there were a few at the initial outbreak, but we've dealt with them," Jim told them.

"Have you? Well that's not all bad news, is it, John?" Sherlock — as Matt — said, patting John's shoulder.

"There are a few empty houses back the way you came. You might find a place to stay," Molly offered.

"Why is the other side overrun, but this side safe?" John asked.

"The infection hit the next town in that direction hard. But there are also houses all along the road on that side, and corpses lying in them, rising sometimes days or even weeks after infection," Jim said.

" _Weeks_?" John asked. "That's the first we've heard of that. I didn't think that was possible."

Molly shrugged. "I know, but that's what we've seen."

"What about the other ways in and out of town?" John asked.

"That's it, except for an old trail that goes up into the hills. We haven't had any trouble from that direction, but we've got it barricaded off too." Molly said.

"You'd best be on your way if you want to find someplace to stay before nightfall. Come by and chat again, alright?" Patting Molly's shoulder, Jim got up and went back to the spot he'd been sitting in before, keeping watch.

"Alright, just let us rest a moment." Sherlock pulled out his phone. "You can't get a mobile signal here, can you?"

"Not anymore. There's been some talk about the government shutting down the mobile satellites." Molly shrugged.

"Yeah, the government shut it all down. I was telling John all my theories about that earlier, wasn't I, John? Oh my goodness, what are those things?" 'Matt' asked suddenly, pointing at something hanging from a nail in the barricade, fluttering in the breeze.

Molly leaned over to see it. "Oh. Some people have started making things like that. Crafts, like. You need something to do with your hands sometimes, especially on watch duty."

John leaned in closer. It was a bundle of black feathers tied up with red thread, a few twigs and crinkly bits of paper, on a long red loop. Now that he was aware of it, he saw them hung all along the barricade.

"No. Not just something to keep idle hands busy. This has significance assigned to it," Sherlock said with certainty, dropping his amiable persona. He reached out and took the bundle into his hand. "Why raven feathers?"

"Well there are a lot of them about, ravens," John said. "Nevermore, and all that."

Molly grinned at the reference, but Sherlock asked, "'Nevermore?'"

"'Quoth the raven,' you know," John said.

Sherlock looked at John like he was speaking a foreign language. "What sense does that make?"

"You can't have made it all the way to uni without having heard of it, it's a famous—"

"No. Stop, John, I've already lost interest. You, tell me about this." Sherlock held up the bundle of feathers toward Molly.

"The ravens came along with the — the infected people," Molly said, slowly. "I mean, there were some here before, but this was a huge flock. Like you hear about, or see in films, ravens following soldiers to battlefields and things like that. Well it's true. We actually sighted the flock of birds first. Some of us thought we knew what it might mean. We had time to get ready to defend ourselves. Basically everyone left here survived because we saw the birds before the Infected got here."

"So these are — what? A good luck charm? A talisman?"

Molly pulled up her knees and hugged them. "To some people here, yes. It's silly, isn't it? Some of them have got a bit superstitious, but I guess that's what happens in circumstances like this."

"That makes sense," John said. When Sherlock gave him a funny look, like John's idea of sense was insane, he added quickly, "It's a symbol of survival. A way for people to be thankful that they survived, and even to congratulate themselves for being smart enough to survive. People adopt symbols all the time — just look at what countries put on flags."

"No, there's something more to this," Sherlock muttered, moving all along the barricade to look at the various bundles of black feathers.

John was torn between frustration at him, and relief that he'd gone back to acting like himself. Molly was staring at him, though. John rather liked her, despite having just met her, and found himself wanting to soften Sherlock's odd behavior.

"He's basically..." John trailed off, looking at Sherlock, who was now out of earshot, as long as they kept their voices down. It was probably only a momentary pause, but it felt like forever. Explaining Sherlock was never easy. Back at uni, everyone knew him — not that he got to know many people personally or was popular in a traditional sense, just that he stood out and his name got mentioned a lot and he had a rather distinctive look and everyone knew him, at least by reputation. But here was Sherlock — a changed Sherlock in a different world, a Sherlock who had lost the scant social filters he normally had, a Sherlock more desperate for mental stimulus than normal.

"Basically," John tried again, "too clever for his own good. One of those super genius kids you hear about who teach themselves Latin while their classmates are learning their ABCs, just because they're bored. At uni he could keep himself, you know, challenged. His classes weren't enough, but he could pursue his own interests as well. But out here... just walking with nothing much to look at, and nothing to do but the basics of keeping ourselves alive for too many days. When the boredom starts to get to him, he has to find an outlet for it."

"It's alright," Molly said, watching Sherlock as well. "I think I understand. Until recently, I never knew life could simultaneously be so horrifying and so boring all at the same time." She smiled and it was genuine, John could tell, but so was the pain and bitter sadness she was talking around. "I've been sitting up here watching the road for days. But at least I have people to talk to. Different people come and help. I like it best when it's Jim. He's a good bloke. But I miss telly and the Internet and everything. Even working. And... and I lost my..."

"These ravens," Sherlock shouted suddenly, rushing back over with black feathers fluttering from his hand. "What did they do when they got here?"

"Oh, um," Molly looked dazed for a second. "The birds ate a lot of the — the scraps that were left behind, the remains of our... of people who died. They ate bits of the Infected as well. I mean, we were fighting them and their bodies are technically dead and decaying. After a while, they start to break down. We knock them down and they get up, but not always with all of their pieces, you know? The ravens ate a lot of it. They even got bold enough, after a while, to swoop down and peck bits right off of them. So they were really helpful to us."

"If they're eating them, though, are they getting infected? Could they be spreading it?" John gave the black feathers in Sherlock's hand a worried look.

"They wash the feathers before they make those. I think," Molly said hastily.

"And the virus isn't transmitted so casually, John," Sherlock said.

"So... it's all a bit morbid, the ravens. It's a mixed bag. I personally... am not very comfortable with them, but I'll take them over the Infected any day," Molly said.

"So we should watch out for flocks of birds," John said. "And run like hell if we see one."

"It's not a guarantee, though," Sherlock said. "We saw groups of the Lost that didn't have birds following them."

Molly nodded. "It's still something to watch out for, though."

"We should go," John said. "It's getting late. We need to find a place to stay before dark — _Matt_ ," John said, getting back into their charade.

Sherlock didn't respond to John. Instead, he turned to Molly. "Your family owns the restaurant, where you work. It's a family business. You all worked there."

"Yeah."

"It has a walk-in freezer," Sherlock said, with significance.

Molly hesitated. "Yes."

Sherlock got a glint in his eye, the kind he usually got when he'd figured out someone's secret.

"So what?" John asked. "The power is out, right? Or do you have a generator and a stash of food in there or something?"

"No, we used up the perishables in the freezer."

"To make room for something else, but it's a false hope — as is your illusion of safety here. You've got a time bomb there, waiting to go off," Sherlock told Molly. "The others are anxious and beginning to give themselves over to superstition. No, it's beyond that — you've got the roots of a new religion taking hold here, and fanatics who are trusting to it to protect them." He gestured toward the raven charms. "You're more intelligent than all that. Get away from this place. Come with us."

"I-I..." Molly looked confused.

"It's not safe here," Sherlock repeated. "You _almost_ had a workable system, with the barricades. But you _can't keep something out when it's already inside_."

"Wait. Explain properly. What's this about?" John asked.

"They have Infected contained in the freezer. Their friends and family. It has thick walls, a heavy metal door. That's what the early news reports said to do — to lock them up — in a cell, in a vault, anything heavy-duty and made out of metal, which most people didn't have access to. So they went on to advise the metal neck-restraints, which of course were meant to destroy them. That was after hope of a cure was gone. But you've kept them in there. You have hope for a cure, still? It's a false hope. You should leave them. Best scenario, they'll flail their bodies to pieces against the door trying to get out. Worst scenario, they'll get out — likely one of the other people will try to check on them — and infect everyone," Sherlock said.

Molly's hands were shaking. "You may be right. But it's _my_ family, and someone, somewhere has to be looking for a cure. We know better than to open the door, whatever your opinion of us is, and after seeing how guarded the town is, how can you think —" She stopped and wiped at her eyes. "Look, the superstitions are getting weird, I'll admit that. But it's been hard to get much perspective. This is all that's left of my friends and family and my old life, and it might still be ok."

"Molly," John began, unsure of what to say.

"You won't leave?" Sherlock asked.

"No."

"Very well, then. John, we have to hurry back," Sherlock said abruptly, as if John had been delaying their departure.

"Alright," John said, confused, putting his backpack back on. He realized he'd lost track of the time. They should have started back by now. "Bye, Molly, it was nice meeting you."

"You too," Molly said, looking stricken and confused.

Confused, John followed as Sherlock hurried off, back toward their camp at a faster pace than was comfortable. It kept them both out of breath enough to discourage talking. If they kept this pace, they'd be back before it got dark out, although it would be close. Despite Molly and Jim's assurances that they hadn't seen many Infected on the road on this side, John didn't want to take any chances.

But even as they hurried and pushed themselves, heavy storm clouds rolled in and blocked the sun, and the day got darker and darker. A premature twilight set in, and Sherlock and John were still miles from camp.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some writer's block on this one. Thanks for sticking with me.

The rain started abruptly, with only the sound of a few drops rhythmically hitting the ground first, like a drummer setting the beat for a song, before the downpour began. It carried the smell of ozone with it. John had an inane flash of thankfulness that he'd brought in the laundry before the rain started, before realizing how foolish that was. Not only were they currently wearing those clothes, they had much bigger things to worry about. They were stuck out here in the dark, far from safety, and he was glad the _laundry wasn't getting wet?_

They hurried along, looking for a place to take shelter. John tried to remember how many houses they'd passed that morning in their walk from their camp to the town — 3? 4? They had been far apart, too. A house would give them little protection from the Infected, but it would be better than nothing. And they could get out of this rain.

It wasn't as dark as night, but it was dark enough. They'd seen the Infected walking around freely in dim light like this before. _This wasn't their fault — this wasn't fair_ , John thought, miserably. He'd watched the time, and while they'd turned back a little later than he'd have liked, they should have had plenty of time. Only they hadn't realized a storm would come on so quickly.

Sherlock sped up into a full run and John tried to keep up, their packs bumping against their backs, and rainwater splashing up from their trainers.

_You're on the safer side right now_ , John remembered Jim telling them. And Molly had said, _it's the other side we get all the trouble from_. John held on to their words like protective talismans as they ran. _It's the other side we get all the trouble from. The safer side, the safer side_. But nothing was safe, not any more.

The road, so dull and unremarkable during the day, felt different now. They each had a torch, but mostly kept them turned off to conserve their batteries. A few times, Sherlock clicked his on and aimed it as things as they passed, although there wasn't much to see. The land on either side was rocky and steep, and there weren't any side roads. If they did run into any Infected along the road, they would have three options — fight, turn around and run (and they would eventually hit the dead end of the barricade at the edge of the town — if they made it that far without dropping from exhaustion), or scramble up one of the rocky inclines. John and Sherlock were in good shape, but they didn't have any experience rock climbing. And with the rock slick from the rain... and in the dark...

It must have been because of the limited visibility (and the fear, if he was being honest) that John thought he saw movement all around them. But it was paranoia — _wasn't it?_ — his mind creating the illusion of the things he feared. Something behind that rock, a shape behind that tree, a shadow that just didn't move right as the torch beam swung by it. John stared at them all (was he remembering to blink? Maybe not. Except when the raindrops landed in his eyes. Maybe he should have found a stupid hat like Sherlock's) but stayed quiet. He didn't want Sherlock to think he was panicking or starting to crack. If anything were really there, John trusted Sherlock to spot it.

All they could do was to keep moving and hope to find shelter. Where was the next house? Sherlock's stride was longer. Inevitably, he pulled ahead and the gap between them widened gradually. John should shout out, make Sherlock stop so he could catch up, but he was too out of breath. What if Sherlock just kept running? What if he never looked back, and just vanished into the darkness?

Finally, Sherlock swung the torch to the left and there was one of the houses. It was a yellow house with a red roof, sitting back some distance from the road. John remembered seeing it earlier. The front door was yawning open and splintered around the deadbolt, and the curtains were hanging pitifully out one of the broken windows, drenched and flapping feebly in the storm.

Sherlock stopped. John tried to catch his breath while Sherlock scrutinized the house. He moved the light around to an outbuilding in the garden, but it was just a simple wooden shed. What they needed to really keep them safe was a nice, stout, old stone building, like the little church John's gran had lived a few blocks from, or the tiny pub with the low doorways Sherlock had to duck through in the village near uni. But out here, they'd seen nothing like that. The wooden house would give them shelter from the rain, and if they went to the upper floor, the stairs would at least slow down the Infected. John took a step forward eagerly, feeling vulnerable on the road.

"Remember what Molly and Jim told us, John," Sherlock said, still playing the torch beam over the house, darting from window to window. "They turned others away who tried to come into town, sending them back this way. They may have chosen to stay in these houses. Infected or not, they could be dangerous."

John looked back at the house. Panicked survivors trying to defend their shelter could kill him and Sherlock just as surely as the Infected could. Sherlock stood frozen, his eyes pale and cold in the glow from the torch. But there was danger out here on the road too. John still saw it — the darting movements at the corners of his eyes. Around them... behind them. It no longer mattered to John if they were running from illusions, or if something was really stalking them. He just had to get inside. He had to find someplace small and secure for himself and Sherlock. Someplace with a door to shut behind them.

Cautiously, Sherlock crossed the muddy front garden and approached the door. The reek hit them then. John put his sleeve across his face. Something was definitely dead inside the house.

"Stop." Sherlock barred John's way with his arm before they reached the front door. John waited, cold rain still running down his face and neck, his spine tingling with anxiety, as Sherlock nudged open the broken door and shined the torch inside without entering. John strained to see over Sherlock's shoulder. The floor, as far as he could see, was a jumble of cloth, trash, and overturned furnishings, but it was the tile floor of the entryway that Sherlock seemed fascinated by. He crouched down and spent a maddeningly long time studying the footprints and scuffs there.

"Tell me whatever you're doing is actually important and you're not just entertaining yourself," John grumbled, but Sherlock didn't reply.

_God, that smell_. Even breathing through the cloth, it was making John gag. Torn between wanting to go in and wanting to continue toward camp despite the risks, he turned and watched the road, covering Sherlock while he did whatever it was he was doing. He saw movement there. The longer he looked, the more sure he was.

When he couldn't take it any longer, he decided to get Sherlock's opinion on it. "Sherlock," he said, muffled by the cloth. "Sherlock, could you — look at this, out here, and tell me if — it might be my eyes playing tricks, but — oh God, I think something is out there —!"

"Hello!" Sherlock called into the house, ignoring John. "If anyone is here, we're coming in. We're not infected. We just want to take refuge until daylight. We don't mean any harm."

Sherlock stood and strode inside, and John followed him. The smell was worse inside, like a punch. Even Sherlock choked and put his scarf over his nose. "Upstairs, John, quickly."

They hurried for the stairs. In the torchlight, John caught a glimpse of a familiarly-shaped lump on the floor. It was mostly covered by debris, but John could make out legs and a pair of trainers. "Sherlock — a body —" he choked out, remembering what Molly and Jim had said about them rising even weeks after death.

Sherlock shined the light over it quickly, before rushing John along. "Decapitated. It's safe. Come on."

Once upstairs, the stench was a little less intense and things didn't look as trashed. They made a quick sweep of the rooms. One of the bedrooms — with a flowered bedspread on the bed, unicorn posters on the walls, and a giant, cuddly purple hippo sitting in one corner — had chains trailing from the broken bed frame and bloody bandages on the floor. The door was shattered, with splintered bits scattered around in the hall. Broken out from the inside. But they found no other bodies or signs of violence upstairs.

Together, they slid several pieces of solid, heavy furniture — a chest of drawers, two armchairs, and a writing desk — to the brink at the top of the steps. Then they shoved them down one at a time. John cringed at the racket they made, thumping and banging as they fell. The first piece lodged itself between the banister and the wall about halfway down and the rest piled up against it. When they were done, the furniture formed a barrier that Sherlock and John would be able to climb over when it was time to leave, but would make the stairs difficult for any Infected to climb.

The two of them settled on the bedroom furthest from it the stairs. Sherlock opened the window, punched the screen out, and leaned out so far his feet left the ground.

"Jesus, Sherlock," John muttered, grabbing the back of Sherlock's belt to stop him falling. Maybe Sherlock was going to be sick — the smell was certainly making John want to vomit — but then he saw that Sherlock was just enthusiastically shining the torch around the garden below.

"Our emergency exit. Let's hope we don't need it," Sherlock told him, ducking back inside, fresh raindrops running down his face. He moved aside so John could look. The roof sloped down under the window, and the drop to the ground from the edge didn't look too bad. He stepped back and debated closing the window — yes, it was cold and raining, but they really needed the fresh air. He settled on leaving it open.

They made a sweep of any places someone might be hiding in the room — closet, under the bed, then locked and barricaded the door with furniture.

Out of habit, John tried the light switch. Of course it didn't work. Thankfully, Sherlock didn't comment on his moment of stupidity. Instead, Sherlock set his torch in the center of the room, shining up toward the ceiling and filling the room with a feeble but fairly even light.

"Someone — either people from Molly's town, or other travelers along the road, entered the house and decapitated the body downstairs — and any others, hopefully — so it wouldn't rise." Sherlock stripped off his hoodie, exposing a lot of pale white skin and his too-thin torso as his tee-shirt rode up in the process. "No one has been to the upper floor of the house recently. A few ventured in as far as the lower level, no doubt looking for supplies and wisely fleeing when they smelled the decaying corpse, but that's it." He shook out the drenched hoodie, droplets flying everywhere, and hung it up to dry.

John followed his lead, setting his rucksack down and taking off his wet jumper. He draped it over the back of the desk chair to dry. "You got all that from the floor by the front door? Of course you did. What about — did you see the — any signs of anything out on the road?" John asked.

Sherlock opened the closet and began pulling out and examining clothing that wasn't his in such a casual way that it reminded John painfully of being back at uni, visiting one of their friend's dorm rooms. "On the road? It was too dark. Not to mention wet," Sherlock said dismissively. He held up a bright yellow tee-shirt with a cartoon character on it and pulled a face. He tossed it over his shoulder. John caught it and used it to dry his hair.

"You didn't see anything, then?"

Sherlock held up a green button-up shirt, appraisingly, flipping it to see the front and the back far more times than seemed necessary. "No."

Well, that was it then — just John's eyes playing tricks. He had to let it go and try to get some rest. He shined his torch around the room. There was an unmade twin bed, a battered laptop plastered with stickers, and a video game system with an impressive stack of games — useless now, of course, with no power, but _damn_ would John have liked to sit down and just lose himself in a game. The room had probably belonged to a teenage boy — the posters were a dead giveaway — they were mainly of cars and bands, but in the niche in the corner behind the closet — where they would be visible from the bed but not from the doorway — they were all of women in bikinis and anime girls with breasts like floating, overfilled balloons.

John's eye fell onto some shelves of books, and he went through them greedily. Battered graphic novels, sci-fi and thrillers — John pulled them off the shelf one by one, looking at the covers and reading the blurbs on the back like a kid who had just got that week's pocket money. Here was an actual escape he could use. Not right now, though — the torch battery was too valuable — but when it was light enough to read. John put several books into his rucksack. For all the work there was to do around the camp, there was downtime, as well, with nothing at all to do, and no entertainment aside from watching Sherlock being Sherlock.

"Novels never held much appeal for me." Sherlock, now dressed in jeans that were too short and baggy on him, plus the green button-up shirt and a dark jacket, picked up a book and angled the cover toward the torchlight. "I only skimmed them when absolutely forced to for school. I couldn't focus on them, not did I want to. They got so many things wrong — and they omitted all the important details about everything. How was I even supposed to follow the story without those?" He smacked the book back down on the shelf. "It was like the authors were lying to me, hiding things from me intentionally."

"Well, it is called fiction for a reason, Sherlock."

"There's fiction, and then there's _absurdity_ , John. Anyway, real life has been feeling like a made-up story anyway."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"No, no, I mean really. Like it's a story I'm just reading, or that someone is telling me." Sherlock shook his head, looking confused by his own thoughts. " _It was a dark and stormy night..._ and all that rubbish. None of it feels real."

"Oh." John put the handful of books that he hadn't wanted back neatly. "Oh. Well, I understand that, actually. Some kind of coping technique. It's pretty common, I think."

"It's more than that, John. It's not just that the infection and us walking from place to place and sleeping rough feels unusual enough to be a story. I'm feeling more that we don't exist properly. On a fundamental level. Maybe we're not real at all, or maybe we're only real somewhere else but we've... slipped from the pages of our own book, into another. The wrong one."

Sherlock had never said anything like that before. Unsure of what to say for a long, silent moment, John became aware of the sound of the rain, and the rustling of things downstairs when the wind blew through the broken window and door. They were in some (probably) dead teenager's room, stealing his stuff like it was nothing, while a decapitated corpse lay downstairs, rotting. And John's rational, genius best friend was telling him they were no longer real. _Jesus._ Profoundly uncomfortable, John closed his pack and set it aside. "Well, I'm sure it's just stress, mate. Don't worry about it."

Sherlock tossed a hoodie at John, hitting him in the face with it.

"Thanks. I think. You do know the smell probably will never come out of these, Sherlock."

"No, but we'll be warm and dry for tonight and we can let our own clothes dry. Besides, they don't smell any worse than the rest of the house."

Sherlock had a point. John's clothes were uncomfortably wet, with sweat as well as rain water. He could tell, because his tee-shirt was drenched, even where the rucksack had covered it. John found a pair of sweatpants in a dresser drawer and changed into them and the hoodie. It had some kind of giant robot on the front and a logo above the elbow on both sleeves.

Sherlock sat on the floor with his weapon by his side. He unzipped his rucksack and took out a bottle of water and sipped it, looking bored. "The smell won't come out of those books, either."

"I don't care." John sat down by him and put away his own torch. "Want to eat?" He knew they must be hungry after all that walking, but...

Sherlock shook his head vehemently. "Ugh."

"Right. I don't think I could either," John said. Even with the fresh air from the window, the smell seemed to have got into John's sinuses and made them ache, and into his esophagus, making his stomach feel tight and hard. But, horrible as the situation was, it was comforting to be inside of an actual house again. John thought back to the town where Jim and Molly lived. If they had to be away from camp for a night, why couldn't they have got stuck there? He understood their reasons for not letting them in, as well as Sherlock's objections, but still...

"What was going on in that town back there, exactly?" John asked.

Sherlock shrugged. "I forget you need everything spelled out for you sometimes, John."

"I don't," John snapped. "We just didn't really get to talk about it before, did we?"

Sherlock turned off the torch. Even with the heavy clouds, the sun hadn't set yet. John's eyes adjusted, and he could make out Sherlock in the grey light.

"They had the luxury of having a naturally protected and defendable location, and a small, close-knit community of locals, with plenty of food and supplies on hand. They were clever in the things they did to protect themselves, such as turning away all outsiders to avoid further contamination. They very nearly had an ideal setup for surviving and waiting out the infection. But they've made mistakes. They're giving up on logic and turning to false beliefs to protect them now. It's like water rusting metal. They were strong, but they're being corroded gradually. And they'll fall because of it."

"Why did you try to talk your way into town?" John asked. "You said we're better off away from groups of people."

"They assumed we wanted to get in, so I let them think that, but I really only wanted to see what they'd do, and to look around. If they had let us in, I would have come up with an excuse to turn around and leave. I had five such scenarios prepared. Depending on the circumstances, I could have picked any of them. But I would have liked to see that barricade on the far side of town, and how well they're defending it," Sherlock said, with a sigh.

"Because we're safe... relatively... as long as the Infected don't get through their barricades."

"Yes, and they will, eventually. If their infected family and friends in the restaurant's freezer get out and attack the residents, they won't be able to defend their borders, and eventually the Lost will break through the barriers and follow the road in our direction. There will be nothing left for them to eat, and they'll come looking for more."

There was a rustling from downstairs, and John froze. It was faint, like crinkling newspapers, but it was persistent and frantic sounding.

"The wind blowing things around?" John asked in a whisper. "The window was broken, remember? And we left the door open."

Sherlock raised his eyes to the open window. The curtains weren't blowing.

"An animal then, like a cat?" John asked, hopefully. "I mean, if it were one of the Infected, we'd hear them stomping around, right? They're not exactly quiet."

"Yes. We would hear footsteps. This is something smaller."

"We're safe if we stay up here, then?"

"Yes, we should stay right where we are until morning." Sherlock shifted. John could hear him moving closer and closer. "Which is quite a long time away. It's fairly early still, John."

"Right," John said, suddenly breathless at Sherlock's tone.

Sherlock crowded into John's space then, straddling John's legs where he sat. "We have a lot of time to kill, and nothing to do." The final few words came with puffs of breath against John's lips, each one coming closer and closer.

Maddeningly, Sherlock paused there, millimeters away, for an endless moment, forcing John to take the initiative and close the space between them. Then, as if he had been freed from something restraining him, Sherlock kissed him and pressed against him desperately, all bones and long limbs, lean torso flexing under John's hands, strong fingers that pressed too hard and still felt good anyway, like massaging a tender muscle. Sherlock's moved against John restlessly, like he was searching for a better angle, nearly overbalancing John.

John held him in place firmly, not letting him squirm any more, and Sherlock seemed to accept that. They kissed, breathlessly, sloppily, desperately. John's mind balked for a moment — _was this the place or the time?_ They'd had too many close encounters with death and the horror of this new world — now that they were _here_ , finally giving in to this thing that had been building _between them ever since they'd met_ — they had to act on it, didn't they? If they waited for a better time, they might never get one.

Sherlock peeled John's shirt up, rubbing his bare skin like he was searching for something, with those intense, too-strong hands of his. Finally having them on him — it was like it was easing something away that John didn't know was bothering him.

They'd kissed before, of course, but aside from that, John had only ever been with girls. _This isn't so different_ , John told himself. _So he's a bloke. It's not big deal_. And it was a silly thought, because it just didn't matter anymore. Sherlock was Sherlock and _fuck it, John loved him_ , didn't he? It didn't feel like conventional love — roses and chocolates and red hearts and whatever the fuck else was supposed to be normal — it was something more subtle, mysterious and subdued one moment, flaring into desperate need another. What else could a feeling this strong be, but love?

John's hands went to Sherlock's bum (he told himself it was to stop that bony arse from digging into his thighs, but even he knew there was more to it than that). Sherlock responded, humming deep in his throat — almost a pleased chuckle. John squeezed it, a hand on each cheek. It wasn't as full as what John was used to, but it was nice.

"John." Sherlock's mouth slid wetly from his mouth to his jaw, and kissed at a sensitive spot. "John, I have been told in the past that... despite seeing so many details about people, I misread certain subtle signs. If you don't want this — if I've somehow got this wrong — stop me."

"You — _wrong?_ " John asked, incredulously.

Sherlock pulled his body away slightly then, keeping his mouth to John's jaw — the shape of his arse changed in John's hands as he did — and Sherlock's fingers moved to the drawstring of John's sweats.

John made an embarrassing, inarticulate sound like "Guh...uck!" He had an instant of stupidly hoping he'd worn his good pants — a conditioned reaction from his old life, back when he was trying to impress girls — and not the boring white briefs — before remembering that he owned exactly two pairs of pants now and Sherlock had already seen them both. This wasn't some girl he'd picked up and was trying to make a good impression on. And John was glad of it.

Sherlock was having trouble untying it. So, even Sherlock's brain got scrambled at times like this. "Want to wank you off," Sherlock said huskily, into John's ear, and John started giggling helplessly.

"What?" Sherlock asked, his hands stilling on the drawstring.

"Oh god, don't stop! It's just, you saying _wank_ —" John started giggling again.

"Very well. I wish to manually stimulate you."

"Oh god — fuck," John said, because _fuck_ if that wasn't way sexier than it should have been.

Sherlock got John's trousers down and palmed him through his pants. "Shall I clarify it even further? I want to rub your penis with my hand, right now, John."

"Ok, that was — that was good, up until that last one —" John gasped out, as Sherlock's fingers dipped into his pants. "No — don't stop. No, wait... actually, _do stop_ —" John clutched Sherlock's wrist.

"What?" Sherlock asked.

"We can't — not here — not now —"

"Why not?"

"Corpse downstairs."

"I doubt they mind, John."

"No, but it's — for fuck's sake," John gasped. " _Zombie little girls' room next door_ —"

"She's long gone," Sherlock said dismissively. "John, stop thinking about it." He stroked John.

"It's disrespect— ugh..."

"It's not. Get your mind off of it, John. Here." Sherlock took John's hand firmly and pressed it to the front of Sherlock's trousers. "We're in the same state, John. We need to take care of it."

Sherlock was right — and his hands were _relentless_. It was enough to get John's mind off of everything. Neither of them had lasted long... but it didn't matter.

*

When John woke up, bright sunlight was coming through the window. He couldn't believe he'd slept through the night in this place. Sherlock was stretched out on the floor, snoring lightly. He must have tugged the covers down off of the bed, because they were draped messily over both of them. They were safe and alive. They had made it.

John shifted silently and cautiously because he didn't want to wake Sherlock yet. He wasn't sure what to say to him. He wanted a few minutes to get himself together before facing Sherlock, although he didn't regret what had happened, not for a second.

He felt twinges of pain when he got up — from the hard floor, the awkward sleeping positions, the long walk, everything. Luckily, the bathroom was directly off of the bedroom, so John didn't have to unblock the door to get to it. The water still worked in the bathroom — although it was cold — and John washed up, slowly and taking his time.

He heard Sherlock moving around in the bedroom and hesitated with his hand on the doorknob for a few moments. He was being silly, he told himself. So he and Sherlock had done _that_ the night before. It wasn't going to change them. Being worried about it was stupid.

It was just that — always, before, when John had been in this situation with someone, if things had got awkward, they'd had other people. Friends, family, classmates. They could take some time apart if they needed to. And if they broke up, they could get some space. But what would happen if things went badly between John and Sherlock now? There were no other people to act as buffers, and they couldn't leave each other. 

John took a few deep breaths and went out into the bedroom, where Sherlock was repacking his rucksack.

"Morning," John said, forcing himself to take on a normal tone.

"Mm." Sherlock didn't look up.

"Sun's out today. Shouldn't be any trouble, getting back to camp,"

"Mm."

John rummaged needlessly in his own pack for something to do. "We should get going. When you're ready. I mean, I'm not trying to rush you, but I'm ready, so whenever..."

"Right."

John risked a quick glance at Sherlock, only to find him looking up at John at the same moment. Sherlock sputtered out a surprised laugh, and a moment later, so did John.

They both lost their self-control. Sherlock was shaking with nearly-silent laughter, while John's was coming out high-pitched and snorting. John couldn't have put into words what they were laughing at. Only that they had something between them, something great and private and _all theirs_ , something no one else could understand.

"Oh my god. Have we got the awkwardness out of the way?" John asked, when he could.

"Yes," Sherlock wiped his eyes. He looked at John from under his fringe in an uncharacteristically coy way. "It's just a waste of time and energy being awkward with each other, isn't it?"

John agreed, and relaxed.

The good mood stayed with them as they finished getting ready, then carefully climbed over the blockage on the stairs. John couldn't wait to get back on the road and back to camp. Now that he and Sherlock had broken the ice, the prospect of waiting together for the infection to run its course didn't seem so bad.

Something rustled in the debris on the floor, and Sherlock, who was in the lead, lunged at it with his makeshift weapon. He plunged it down, blade-first, so hard that it stuck in the floor and stood up by itself. And at the base, impaled by the blade, something was still moving.

John rushed forward, shocked, his own weapon at the ready, but Sherlock held out an arm to stop him. They stood in silence — John's heart pounding in his ears — and stared at it.

A head — a zombified, _human head_ — which had been severed from its body, but not by Sherlock. No, this was clearly the head of the body that was lying across the room, decapitated several days ago. Sherlock's blade had only pierced it through its cheek and pinned it to the floor. But it was still animated by the infection, gnashing its teeth on the haft of the spear and rolling its eyes. It was separated from the body, but unable to die. Still dangerous. Still capable of spreading the infection.

John swore, stringing words together nonsensically, so stunned and horrified that he didn't put it together until later... that _it_ had been what they'd heard thrashing around downstairs the night before.


	14. Chapter 14

In a tricky, carefully-planned maneuver, they pulled out Sherlock's spear and quickly trapped the head under a crate they had found in the shed in the yard. Then John ran out into the front garden and retched.

Sherlock wanted to build a fire in the garden to cremate the head, as he thought it was the only sure way to completely destroy it, but John just wanted to get far away from that house as quickly as possible. He thought it was too risky to try to move the head, as it could infect them, and suggested just burning the whole house down. Sherlock rejected that idea, though. He wanted to observe the cremation process up close. He argued that he could learn important things from it, and that he could safely handle it as long as he was careful, but John wasn't convinced.

"You said that you would always choose to keep me safe, remember, Sherlock?" John said finally, in desperation. "You _tricked me_ to keep me safe, like I was some stupid kid. So when I say that this is too dangerous and I don't want you to do it, will you listen to me? Because I'm not a bloody great genius with some trick already prepared to keep you safe."

Somehow that convinced Sherlock (although he still grumbled that he could have done it safely). They left the head trapped under the crate and got their packs and began walking toward their camp. It was bright and sunny out, with just a few traces of puddles here and there from the rain.

As they walked, an oppressive sense of _wrongness_ stayed with John, settled in his head like a stubborn headache. He felt cold and alien in his own skin. Knowing that even decapitation didn't really stop the Infected was frightening enough from their point of view as survivors who had to fight them, but he couldn't help wondering if there was any human consciousness left in them. What if that thing back there under that crate could still think... oh, please, God, no — it was too horrible.

John followed Sherlock, staring at the skulls drawn on Greg's old rucksack in biro. The last twenty-four hours had just been confusing. It had felt good to meet other survivors, especially ones who were fighting and seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves, all things considered. It gave John hope for the rest of the world and the possibility of rebuilding it once this was all over. He had liked Molly in particular, and wished there were some way to work together with them as allies. But Sherlock wouldn't allow that, and the people in the town wouldn't let them in anyway. Which meant Sherlock and John were trapped here, in their camp and on this stretch of road. Since they had left uni, they had always been limited by how far they could travel between sunrise and sunset, but now they knew they wouldn't be able to get out in that direction.

And then, all of that aside, there was everything that had happened with Sherlock the night before...

Once, while they were walking, John glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye and looked back with a start. There were black birds following them. Not the flock that Molly and Jim had described, just four or five, but it was enough to unnerve John further. But John was tired of constantly watching their backs and being worried at any sign of danger, so he didn't say anything. It was one of those things that seemed better to just pretend he hadn't seen. Anyway, a few birds felt insignificant after dealing with an _undead human head_ , so John ignored them.

When they reached their camp, and had checked that it was safe, John felt like he wanted to collapse with relief. There could no longer be any question in his mind about if this was home or not — because that was what it felt like. _This_ was how home _felt_. And Sherlock was part of it.

John had been worried that the roof of their cabin might have leaked during the storm, but he found that it had held up surprisingly well. The floor was a little damp on one side, but none of their belongings had got wet. No other real change had occurred to their camp while they had been gone, although the creek was higher and faster than normal from the rain.

Sherlock stripped off his borrowed clothes (he entirely had no qualms about nudity, as John had learned back in the dorms when Sherlock would change clothes regardless of who was in the room or if the door to the hall was open or not) and waded right into it.

John didn't know where to look. Sherlock may not care who saw him naked, but... but now... John sat down in the cabin, shutting the door behind him. There were too many things going on in his head. It felt like a bookcase that had been tipped over, with its carefully-arranged contents dumped all over a floor... books jumbled together, lying open, with cracked spines and bent pages.

And he felt like he was still trapped in that goddamned yellow house with the red roof, the walls around him were the walls of the bedroom, and downstairs, below him... He could still smell it —

John jumped up and grabbed up his own clothes. He changed into them as fast as he could, then crossed to the far side of the miner's camp and threw the sweats and hoodie into one of the unused shacks. He made a second trip, swapping Sherlock's borrowed clothes (which he had left in a pile at the edge of the creek) for his old dirty ones. He put everything they'd taken from that house — including the books — into that shack and slammed the door on them, because Sherlock had been right — the smell was still lingering on them.

It was a little better, but his mood took longer to recover.

*

They didn't do much for the rest of the day. Once Sherlock was done bathing (he'd taken a long soak — so long that John kept checking to make sure he hadn't drowned or been swept downstream. John didn't know how he could stand it — the water wasn't exactly warm), John washed more clothes, and Sherlock sat brooding on the ledge of rock overlooking the camp, smoking and staring at nothing. As the shadows grew longer and late afternoon turned into early evening, he came down and they ate together, sitting on the rocks outside of their cabin.

"Let's get inside, John," Sherlock said, when the sun had sunk below the bluffs.

John sighed. "I know." Sunlight was safety, and when it was running out, little else mattered. But John missed the feeling of the cool evening air and seeing the night sky. With the electricity out in all the surrounding areas, it must be beautiful. And after spending the night trapped in that room in the house, he wasn't eager to go back indoors. Their cabin had felt safe and cozy before, but now...

Sherlock frowned at John's hesitation. "John?"

"Yeah. I know. Just a minute."

"Um, John, perhaps you missed my meaning." Sherlock spoke slowly. "I want you to come inside with me. Right now, John."

John stared at him. Oh... _oh!_ Did he mean...?

"Let's go inside and have sex, John," Sherlock said.

John got it that time. He scrambled to his feet, face growing hot, even as he grinned uncontrollably.

They entered the cabin. With the meager light from the open door, John hastily spread out their bedrolls side by side. Then Sherlock shut and secured the door, leaving them in near darkness. Clumsy in the dark and laughing at themselves, they felt for each other and knelt together on their bedding. Sherlock cupped John's face and kissed him, their bodies pressed together, and John heard the wet sounds sounds their lips made, Sherlock breathing, the little hums of pleasure. Sherlock — who, as John was quickly learning, was never subtle where such things were concerned — pushed John down onto his back and lay on top of him, settling his weight onto him.

Sherlock wiggled, sliding himself until his head was on John's chest, and pushed his shirt up. He took John's nipple between his lips and — oh! That felt absurdly nice. Why hadn't any of John's girlfriends ever done that for him? John's neck arched back and he let out a shivery, breathy laugh, digging his fingers into Sherlock's hair. He wished for some light — he'd _really_ enjoy being able to see Sherlock's tongue on his nipple.

Sherlock worked his way down further to just above John's trousers, dragging his lips over John's skin. _Is he going to do it? Is he going to —?_ Sherlock undid the button and zip, and pressed his mouth to the front of John's pants as he worked John's jeans down. _This is it — this is really sex. With Sherlock. Gay sex with Sherlock._ One fumbling, desperate hand job after an adrenaline high he might write off, but this... this was something more.

John had to admit to himself that he felt a sexual attraction to the male body, and... he would have cared, back in his old life, he would have worried and had an identify crisis and overthought it, but now he really didn't fucking care. He honestly couldn't be arsed to try to figure it out and analyze it all.

It was Sherlock, and this was between the two of them, and what else mattered?

*

The next morning, they woke up, awkwardly wrapped up in each other and their blankets. John still didn't know how to act with Sherlock in these kinds of situations. He decided to do what he'd always done with his girlfriends.

"Morning," John said, giving Sherlock a quick kiss.

"Good morning," Sherlock said slowly. Then, "Is it necessary to greet each other? We haven't been out of each other's company."

"We were asleep."

"But you greet people when you meet after being apart. We were asleep _together_."

John sighed. Sherlock was always Sherlock, even when you were shagging him. "Yes, and now we're awake and seeing each other again. So you say 'good morning' and you kiss each other." Seeing the skeptical look on Sherlock's face, John added, "It's customary. It's _nice_."

"Mm... Perhaps it is nice." Sherlock kissed John again.

Well, miracles happened sometimes, didn't they?

Once they were up and dressed, Sherlock suggested plans for the day. "For our next expedition" — as if the last one had been some _magnificent adventure!_ — "there's a path going up into the hills." He pointed to the path that branched off near the entrance of the mine and headed away from the road. "Shall we find out where it leads?"

The path climbed up and up into the hills, always staying within sight of the creek. Sherlock and John had to climb up rocky inclines in some places, and in others the path was overgrown and difficult to see, but it wasn't too hard.

Eventually, the creek grew wider and slower until it became a calm, still pool surrounded by trees. It was gorgeous and serene, a rarity amid the rocks and brush and mundane landscape around their camp and the road. At the far end of the pool, the water flowed out of a break in the rocks. There must be a spring that fed it somewhere underground.

They couldn't find a continuation of the path. Maybe this was as far as it went. Sherlock wandered around and around the pool, looking at everything and talking a mile a minute to himself. John sat down in the shade. He quite liked it here. Eventually, Sherlock settled down for a rest. They had no other plans for their day and there was no work at camp that needed to be done right away. John got Sherlock to agree to stay a while.

Not even daring to hope, John turned on his mobile. There was no signal here, either. He wasn't even sure what he would do if he got one. Go through his contacts, calling them all and getting his heart broken when no one answered?

He stared at the last text he'd gotten from Sherlock. _Save me._ He'd sent it because he (melodramatically) wanted John to come and save him from the annoyance of Greg's friends visiting their room. Back then, that had actually been something to worry about. Wasn't it ridiculous? John would give anything to have that problem now. He shut off his phone and put it away.

Something had been bothering John for a while. They'd never really dealt with what it had been like, losing Greg. He had been a good friend to both of them. He, Sally, and Philip had died trying to do the right thing, and they hadn't deserved what had happened to them. He wanted to do something for them to honor their deaths and the difficult journey they'd all taken together.

The slab of rock John was sitting on was flat and smooth. It in front of the water, at the very top of the trail, like a plaque or a grave marker. John knelt in front of it and experimentally scratched the tip of his pocket knife along it. Maybe it was sandstone, or another soft kind of rock, because it left a shallow groove.

And John found his outlet. Not caring what Sherlock might think or say, he began painstakingly carving marks — letters — _words_ — into it. He thought carefully about what he needed to say. But it was harder and more time-consuming than he'd expected, and as he went, he found himself abbreviating and taking shortcuts out of necessity. He completely lost track of time and everything around him, aside from a few breaks he took to rinse his hands in the cool water and make sure that Sherlock hadn't wandered off or fallen in (he was crouching at the side of the pool, staring into the water like a cat at a mouse hole).

When John was finished, he had carved these words:

_Sherlock Homes & John Watson Escaped Infection Here. R.I.P. Lestrade, Donovan & Anderson._

He'd wanted to put more, how they had died trying to save children, the date, their first names. Something about the chaos the world had fallen into. But his hand had long since cramped up, and he wasn't sure he could hold the knife anymore. John sat there cross-legged and looked at his work for a while, just _not thinking_.

Sherlock eventually came over. John wiped his eyes as Sherlock stood behind him, silently looking at the carving for far longer than it would take to read it.

With Sherlock, John knew better than to get his hopes up that Sherlock would understand or share in his feelings. But as the silence stretched out, John wondered if Sherlock sensed that the carved words were as much a monument to Sherlock and John themselves as it was to their friends who had died. It was a record of their journey, their survival thus far, and whatever happened after this. Maybe they wouldn't make it out of this alive. Maybe this would serve as his and Sherlock's gravestone as well. Maybe someone, someday would discover it and read it, or no one would ever see it. The elements would erode the words away eventually, but they would still outlast the two of them. It was more solid, more permanent than anything else.

"Etched in stone, the two of us," Sherlock said, softly. "Yes. Yes, that is fitting."

_He does understand_. About the fact that they were _together_ now, in life or in death, in flesh or in stone, they would exist in some form.

"But Donovan and Anderson too?" Sherlock asked, in a put-upon tone. "Really John, they could have gone on a different stone."

John just laughed. A bit louder than necessary, all of his emotions spilling out together. When Sherlock bent down to kiss him, John met him with an unexpected urgency. They were _alive_ and _now_ , warm and breathing... and they would keep fighting to stay that way.

John's hand slid up Sherlock's bare arm. In response, Sherlock ducked back out of the kiss, breaking it off, and caught John's hand. He studied the blisters on John's fingers, and John felt confused, annoyed, and embarrassed all at once.

"Was it worth it?" Sherlock asked, feeling the blisters with his fingertips.

_Yes, until it made you stop kissing me_. "I don't know. I think it was. To me."

Sherlock shifted his gaze to the sky. "We need to go back while we have enough sunlight."

"Right," John said, getting up with a sigh. "Maybe we can come back here again sometime."

"Perhaps."

*

Over the next several days, they fell into regular patterns. Their life was almost comfortable.

John took care of their camp and their things, mainly because Sherlock wouldn't. It wasn't that he was lazy, exactly. He just didn't see the necessity of things in the same way John did. And he didn't seem to have the ability to focus on any kind of manual labor for long, not unless it required a lot of problem-solving. Chemical experiments he could get engrossed in for days, but when it came to prying old nails out of some of the falling-down shacks and using them to patch the leak in their roof, Sherlock just couldn't focus.

Lying in the weeds near the fire pit, John found a rusted, metal tripod which had probably once been there hold things over the fire. They started building fires and using the tea kettle to boil the creek water to make it safe to drink. It seemed to work, as neither of them got ill after drinking it. It was time-consuming, but it was a relief to know that they didn't have to rely on the petrol station shop for water. John boiled kettle after kettle of water, waited for it to cool, and refilled all their empty bottles.

They brought back more supplies from the petrol station. Using the kettle, they managed to make — _thank God_ — tea.

Food was their next concern. They weren't running low yet, but they were both craving a real meal. John had recurring daydreams about food. It was mostly meat that he craved, but also fruit and veg, the things they just couldn't get out of a package from the convenience shop. It was the kind of daydream that made his cravings worse, so he tried not to indulge them. Sometimes he also found that he ignored his hunger just because the food they had on hand didn't appeal to him. He justified it in his own mind as rationing, but knew it wasn't healthy. Sherlock said he had seen fish in the pool upstream. It would be a long hike just to catch some fish, but John kept it in the back of his mind as a possibility.

And during the nights in their cabin, tangled together with Sherlock under their blankets, half-formed thoughts went through John's mind. He understood that his life, _now, right now_ , was the best it could possibly be in this new world.

Bittersweet, fleeting happiness.

*

One morning while Sherlock was up on his rock outcropping, John sat near the fire pit and ate a dry, packaged bun and drank some juice. A few ravens perched in the half-dead, split tree and watched him. Just a few, not enough to be alarming. John watched them back. He liked them, the way they moved, their funny, waddling walk, their air of dignity and grace, the range of colors that shone in their feathers in the sun — more than just black. But after hearing what Molly had said about them, and after seeing what he'd seen of them, he was slightly wary of them. If they had been eating the flesh of the Infected, could they be carrying the infection with them? Did it change them in some way?

One of them flew down into the weeds, then flew off with something fluttering in its beak. It caught the sunlight as it flew — an empty foil wrapper from a chocolate bar or granola bar.

"Oh yeah, they like shiny things, don't they? Or is that something else?" John asked himself. "No, it's ravens." He looked down at the wrapper from his breakfast. They hadn't really known what to do with their trash. Growing up with ready rubbish bins and anti-littering laws hadn't prepared them for living rough like this. Some things they reused or found other uses for, like empty tins and bottles, but the rest they had just been throwing aside, even though it didn't feel right.

So John picked a spot off to one side of the camp, and with one of the rusty picks, he dug into the ground, starting to make a shallow pit to bury their trash in.

"Sorry boys," John said to the handful of ravens that were around. "And girls. Pretty as the shiny things may be, they probably aren't good for you. What if you choked on them?"

The pick hit some rocks and John tried to work them free with his hands. They went deep, though. He knelt, trying to pry it out, it was an odd shape, fairly round — what was it reminding him of? _Maybe it wasn't a rock_ —

John recognized what he was touching and flung himself back, winding up sitting on his arse in the dirt with his hands behind him. "Oh — oh shit," he muttered, and took a few deep breaths. "Shit. Shit..."

"John?" Sherlock came running.

"I'm alright. It's alright," John called. "Just — just had a bit of a surprise. That's all."

Sherlock looked into the hole John had been digging. He slowly knelt down, fascinated by what he saw there, letting out a slow, long breath.

"I was just going to bury our rubbish," John said, getting up and wiping his hands to get the dirt and the... the creepy sensation off of them, feeling foolish. "I didn't think... I mean, the rest of the graves are over..." he waved his hand vaguely toward the crude grave markers.

Sherlock cleared dirt away from the skull with his hands. "And yet this fellow got himself buried in a shallow grave over here with no marker," Sherlock said, sounding breathless and fascinated. "But why? Why is he different?"

"Sherlock." John should have anticipated Sherlock's fascination. "We have to — put the dirt back. Leave it be. Come on."

But Sherlock already had the pick in his hands. "We need to find out why he was buried separately. We have to study him."

"No. It's human remains. Christ," John muttered, both at the idea of digging up the skeleton, as well as the knowledge that he wasn't going to win this argument. "Respect for the dead..."

"Respect? It was disrespectful for him to be buried like this, John! And if he was _murdered_ , then that was quite disrespectful of the murderer, wasn't it?"

John knew a lost cause when he heard one. He shook his head and walked over to the creek to wash his hands, which were still tingling where he'd touched the skull. He could still feel it against his skin. The creek water was cold, and as he knelt with his hands in it, he had to admit — he wasn't as repelled by what Sherlock was doing as he might have sounded. His arguments had been automatic. He was kind of interested, despite himself. Not that he wanted to be involved in digging it up, but if Sherlock wanted to...

So Sherlock spent the rest of the day digging up the bones, and carefully laying them out on the floor of one of the unused wooden shacks. He found a few old buttons with the body, and discovered that the jaw was cracked and the skull had a broken piece on one side. He knelt over it, happily examining it.

John kept busy around camp with other things, and checked in on Sherlock occasionally.

"Alright, you can keep it. Just don't name it," John said, humoring Sherlock.

"Already have," Sherlock replied. _"Victor."_

*

Sherlock examining the skeleton had been so much like the old Sherlock back at uni... That might have been what triggered John's dream — at least, the first part of it.

_"John."_

_"Ngg."_

_"John." Sherlock shook John._

_"What?" John asked, opening his bleary eyes. There was a strip of sunlight coming around the crack in the dorm room curtains. He noticed that Sherlock was wearing a t-shirt with a unicorn on it today and John wondered if he even knew it was a mythological creature or if he thought it was real._

_"It's your notebook, John. Greg put it up on display in classroom 16... or was it 17? People are looking at it and getting upset."_

_"Upset?" John sat up._

_"Upset and angry. I can tell by their eyebrows. It was about something you drew in it. Comic book characters, or something."_

_"Oh my god." John slapped his forehead in shock. He remembered, suddenly, what he'd drawn in it. Not just superheroes — he wasn't just exposing his geekiness. He'd drawn them naked! No, wait — he had drawn_ Sherlock _naked! With lots of detail... He felt so ashamed. Why had he done that?_

_"I didn't see it, but I thought I should tell you before some angry stranger does," Sherlock said. "And you should hurry up. Class is starting."_

_John looked at his alarm clock, shocked._ Shit, was it that late already? _He wanted to run and get his notebook back before more people saw it, but the class he needed to go to was in the opposite direction. The university consisted of one very long, straight hallway with classrooms on either side. It would make him late to class, and today's class was really, really important! They had been learning how to decapitate people using common, everyday items made into weapons, and today was their exam. But his notebook! His private drawings! He felt frantic. Wouldn't it be worth it to just run away from uni and never come back?_

_"Come on." Sherlock pulled the covers off. "Let's go get it together. If we're both late to class, it won't look so bad."_

_"Really?" John got up, relieved. As always, he felt that Sherlock had come up with the perfect solution. "Thanks, Sherlock."_

_They were hurrying down the hall, when John heard his name._

_"John!"_

_It was Greg, running toward him like the hounds of hell were at his heels._

_"What's wrong?" John asked._

_"Bad people after me, come on!" Greg grabbed John's shoulder and they ran._

_But no matter where they went, ducking in and out of classrooms and hiding, the people were always on their tail. They were always hunted, always pursued._

_Finally John ducked into a room and Greg couldn't come with him, because someone else was already in there. Nonplussed, John stared at her._

_"You're running from them too? I'll help you," the woman said kindly. "Child, you hide in the remedy cabinet," she said, ushering John into what was clearly a bathroom — he could see the toilet._

_Oh — there was a long tunnel leading underground. He followed the tunnel, thinking that she must have intended him to do so, and found himself outside at night. He was in some impossibly high place, looking down on clouds and tiny human cities, near a clear pool of water._

_Harry was there. She was carving something on a boulder. It was hard work, and it was creating blisters on John's fingers. But that was how it always was with Harry — John always shouldered the consequences of her actions. His mobile rang in his pocket, but he ignored it._

_John felt a jolt of annoyance at her. "When did you get here? How did you find me?"_

_"I found you."_

_"Yes, but how? We're in the middle of nowhere."_

_"Yeah, and you picked one hell of a spot." Harry waved her hand vaguely at the landscape, and down the hill toward the camp. "Lucky for me, the veil is thin here."_

_"But... how did you know I was here?"_

_Harry sighed, like John was still her bratty baby brother asking her questions that would have answers far too difficult for him to understand. "I was someplace — it was like I was deep underwater, just floating there comfortably. Then you were above me, like a beam of light coming down from the surface. It was easy to swim up where you were. Easy to breech the surface to speak to you." Harry said, carving all the while. "Like Ariel — remember that movie?" She threw back her head and laughed. "I always wanted to pry those damn clamshells of of her."_

_Yeah. John had, too, actually..._

_"Look, let me get to the point," Harry said. "Don't. Get. Infected."_

Infected. That word... _"Yeah. Sure. I know that." His mobile started to ring again. "Wait, what are you carving? I can't read it."_

_"I mean it. Die any other way possible, jump in front of a train, or explode in a fireball or whatever — but_ don't get infected."

_"What do you — oh, hold on," John said, and fished out his still-ringing mobile. He had a text from Harry, but the words were hard to read._ "Clara lost the necklace my angel grew her wings but didn't fly I can't find her she isn't with me they don't pass the boundaries."

_"Wait... wait... did Clara get infected?" John asked, feeling a sensation of ice in his stomach. "Oh God, Harry, I'm so sorry."_

_Harry laughed bitterly. "If I said I took the pills by mistake, would anyone believe me?"_

_Suddenly, John realized that whatever she was carving was really important. He got closer to the stone and strained his eyes, trying to make sense of the marks there. He ran his fingers over them, tracing them over and over, until finally the inscription resolved itself into words, like John's eyes were coming into focus._

_It read:_ SHERLOCK IS YOUR CLARA.

_"Harry, where is Sherlock?" John asked, a sudden anxiety in his voice. His memory was clearing up now. Harry shouldn't have been here, and even more, they shouldn't be outside after dark. It was too dangerous. "Where is he?" John looked around frantically. Where was he?_ Where was he?

John woke up then. He was in the cabin with Sherlock snoring beside him. In the dark, John found Sherlock's hand grasping John's shirt, and put his hand over it while he tried to slow down his racing heart.

The wind howled outside, and John was like a child in bed late at night, frozen in terrified anticipation in the seconds between the lightning and the thunder.


End file.
